We all know just how much Governor Christie values education, but if you thought that numbnuts, idiot and drug mule stretched the governor's vocabulary, then take heart. Over the past week, Chris Christie has added valuable new terms to his, and New Jersey's, political dictionary. Below is a guide to new terms, and old standbys, that the governor has brought back through sheer will, repetition and exasperation.
Tools
Use this word when the nonpartisan Office of Legislative Services says that the state will generate $537 million dollars less than you said it would, endangering the income tax cut you've pegged to higher growth. The definition also allows you to make up numbers as you go along and ignore the realities of an economic recovery still in its infancy. And hey, if worse comes to worse, you can rely on a bailout from cash reserves, right? Oops
Revamp
This is a tricky term, because what you really want is for the Executive Branch of the state government to bypass the legislature and enact your reorganization of higher education all by its lonesome, without having to answer bogus questions from the press.
You've proposed splitting the University of Medicine and Dentistry of New Jersey and giving a medical school and a cancer institute to Rutgers University in New Brunswick and Piscataway. The Camden campus of Rutgers would become part of Rowan University, a plan opposed by many at Rutgers.
Use this term liberally (sorry) when you know you can't get what you want from the Democrats but you really want to be president in a few years and you're not going to let minor issues like separation of powers get in your way.
Pigs at the Trough
A handy phrase with many all-purpose uses. It applies well when you're in the unlikely position where Democrats are highly suspicious of your plan (see above) to gut the state university's South Jersey campus in a sweetheart deal with someone named, say, George Norcross and merge it with Rowan University. After all, Rutgers, Rowan, what's the difference? These Democrats want money for North Jersey college campuses so they can also benefit from the reorganization. If their request for money is pig, is your request for $40 million for Rowan bull?
Plagiarism
Be careful here. After all, one governor's copying is another's agenda, and oh do we know your agenda. Fear not, governor: ALEC will help write the speech you'll give at the Republican Convention in Tampa this summer that will make you sound acceptable to the far right wingers that Mitt will need on board in the fall.
Partisan Hack
Not to be confused with your pugnacious endorsement of Mitt Romney or your unalloyed disdain for President Obama, which of course would be labeled "honest disagreement" in your more gentle political lexicon. Use this term against the 88 year-old senior Senator from New Jersey when he has the audacity to criticize your plan to make Rowan University famous without saying how exactly you would do it or how much it would cost. If the above term is not enough, you can also pile on bizarre and vengeful.
That's it for now, but I'm sure that the good guv'nor will be adding more terms as the year moves forward. Citizens should practice these terms at their place of employment and see how long they remain on the job. As they're being escorted out of the office, they should thank Chris Christie for once again being a role model of whom we can all be proud.
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