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The month isn’t going good for New Jersey Governor Chris Christie and his sharp tongue/large mouth. After throwing choice invectives flying at Newt Gingrich, Raymond Kelly (NY Police Commissioner), and Democrats, he criticized people, who objected to lowering of New Jersey flag for Whitney Houston, and has now gone overboard and publicly called a 34 year law student a ‘jerk’ and an ‘idiot.’ Bill Brown, the target of the Governor’s pleasure is a law student at Rutgers and a former member of the Navy SEALS.
On Monday, the Governor defended his acts publicly by telling the media, “He acted like an idiot. He’s an idiot. I don’t have any regret about it at all.” While the Governor admitted that Mr. Brown’s service in the military is to be respected, that “doesn’t give him the right to be a jerk.”
Bill Brown earned the ire of the Governor when last week, Brown held a meeting questioning the administration’s plan to merge Rutgers’s Camden Campus and Rowan University. The Governor, who was present at the meeting called Brown an ‘idiot’ after a heated exchange of words. Shortly after, Mr. Brown was escorted out of the town hall by the police amidst his protests.
Brown, who ran for the State Assembly as a Democrat in 2010, said the Governor was “delusional.”
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Mr. Brown criticized the Governor for “what he’s doing to humiliate citizens when they speak against ideas they disagree with.” Brown further added that “Town hall meetings are not the courtroom.”
Earlier incidents this month of the sharp tongue of Governor Chris Christie include retorting to a Twitter commenter who called the Governor’s decision to lower the flag of New Jersey for Whitney a “joke” with “You are a joke.”
On the issue of the NY Police Commissioner’s surveillance of Muslim groups in New Jersey, the Governor expressed on public media: “Well, because he’s Ray Kelly, what are you going to do … He’s all-knowing, all-seeing.”
Representative Bill Pascrell Jr. criticized the Governor’s attack on Bill Brown, saying “The governor crossed the line of decency on his latest tirade on a New Jersey taxpayer.”
Commenting on the Governor’s characteristic style of handling opposition, Ruth B. Mandel, director of the Eagleton Institute of Politics at Rutgers said, “My concern is, it could make some people afraid to speak up and risk the response they might get. They might be intimidated by that … And frankly, I don’t think anyone has ever seen a major public official, a governor, dressing down audiences that way.”
Bill Brown said he would file a lawsuit.
