No wonder Newman was disgusted with Jerry Seinfeld’s shenanigans. It was Seinfeld who set the precedent for a successful professional to mug an elderly Jewish woman.
New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie, a Republican, must have viewed the television segment when Seinfeld mugged an old Jewish lady to snatch her marble rye. What else could have inspired Christie to endorse an assault on Democratic state Sen. Loretta Weinberg? She is female, elderly and Jewish?
Certainly, Christie went too far when he proclaimed that the press might wish to “take the bat out” on Weinberg because of her alleged hypocrisy over pensions. In all seriousness, Christie might have gone so far as to violate the New Jersey Criminal Code.
Christie’s words were threatening, and no matter what he meant his comment could at least encourage some nut to harm or harass the senator. Perhaps Christie’s remark might constitute the crime listed as “terroristic threats.”
This chapter in the Christie saga dates to an April 3 report in The Star-Ledger of Newark when Weinberg suggested that Christie neglected to criticize a political ally’s pension arrangement in the same spirited manner that he attacks others with questionable pension arrangements.
Weinberg referred to Essex County executive Joseph DiVincenzo, who retired in 2010, started collecting a pension and then returned to the county executive job, according to The Bergen Record of Hackensack. He makes $222,000 yearly between his pension and salary.
Though he is allied with Christie, DiVincenzo is a Democrat. Weinberg also collects a pension based on her time in a full-time Bergen County position and in other government jobs. Her annual take is $85,000 between the pension and legislative salary.
During a news conference on April 13, 2011, Christie said Weinberg might be eligible for a “hypocrisy award.”
“I mean, can you guys please take the bat out on her for once?” the governor said. “Here’s a woman who knows she did it, yet she comes to you and is pining…’Oh! My goodness! How awful this is! What a double standard!’ But she’s the queen of double standard.”
The wording of the “terroristic threats” definition makes one wonder if Christie indeed committed a crime.
The law reads: “A person is guilty of a crime of the third degree if he threatens to commit any crime of violence with the purpose to terrorize another or to cause evacuation of a building, place of assembly, or facility of public transportation, or otherwise to cause serious public inconvenience, or in reckless disregard of the risk of causing such terror or inconvenience.”
I have no doubt that Christie was speaking metaphorically, but that is my personal opinion, and probably that of most people. However, the governor still used literal words of an action that could “terrorize another” or “cause serious public inconvenience.”
In practical terms, the governor uttered these words “in reckless disregard of the risk of causing such terror or inconvenience.”
Christie did not consider that someone out there might get it in their head to “take the bat out on” the senator.
Your average prosecutor would conclude that the governor did not intend physical harm, but should they ignore his “reckless disregard” for what could follow?
Even if his remark does not rise to a criminal standard, Christie was plainly irresponsible. He should have known better. He is an attorney and he spoke in a forum that is now being watched nationwide.
Christie might wish to recall the outcome of Seinfeld’s crime: It cost his father the presidency…of his condominium board, that is.
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