On the surface, it looks like a perfectly-crafted Right-Wing conspiracy. Six days before the election, in the last hour of a Democratic Senator’s campaign for reelection, a potentially devastating report emerges on a widely-respected conservative website known for its journalistic integrity. The Senator has allegedly engaged with prostitutes in the Dominican Republic. He reportedly neglected to pay them what they were initially promised for their services. What’s more, one of the Senator’s top donors has purportedly allowed him to stay at his private villa and utilize his private jet for his trips. In the following days, more details come to light. One of the prostitutes with whom the Senator allegedly had relations was just sixteen years old. 

The combination of cringeworthy details - the Senator preferred “the newest and youngest girls”; the Senator’s “prostitution spree” went on as he crusaded against prostitution in Cuba - seemed designed to knock him down as Anthony Weiner and Elliot Spitzer had been knocked down before. He would be just one more in a long line of liberals who sacrificed his power for the sake of his sexual desires. 

Yet, the allegations made by The Daily Caller against Senator Robert Menendez (D-NJ) this past November were at first met with almost universal indifference. The evidence provided by The Daily Caller was not convincing enough to outweigh the fact that the timing - with the state which Menendez represents struggling to recover in the wake of Hurricane Sandy and the presidential election visible on the horizon - was just not right for a sex scandal to stick.

Senator Menendez beat his opponent, New Jersey State Senator Joe Kyrillos, handily and became chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations committee.  

Menendez’s victory did not stop The Daily Caller from persisting. Since the initial November 1, 2012 posting, the website followed up no less than 45 times with various updates to the story. Though, the hardest evidence provided remained the footage of two Dominican prostitutes, their faces blurred, identifying Senator Menendez in a photograph as the man they serviced. The website’s efforts to discredit and disempower Menendez seemed at best futile and at worst embarrassing. 

And then on Monday night, The Washington Post published a report that one of Senator Menendez’s alleged Dominican escorts had confessed to police that she and her colleague were paid by an unnamed attorney to read a prepared script containing the charges that they had provided sexual favors for the Senator in return for payment. The escort, according to The Washington Post, now asserts that she has never even met Bob Menendez. 

After four long months of “did he or didn’t he?” and “does anyone even care?” it would appear that Senator Menendez was telling the truth all along. As he told the post “there are obviously some people, some interests using right-wing blogs that have been perpetuating smears about me and I hope that all the truth comes out, because they are nothing but that — smears,” continuing, “I’ve always said that these are all false. They’re smears, so I look forward to seeing whatever the Dominican courts have to prove what I’ve said all along.”

But America should not now be asking “who framed Robert Menendez?” It would be too obvious for this to be what it looks like. What America should be asking is “who framed The Daily Caller?” 

Why would The Daily Caller, which is so widely renowned for its consistent reliability, have persisted with such a ridiculous story - besides the fact that because of the bottomless pockets of their bankroller, rejected Batman TV show villain Foster Friess, they could? 

Who sticks to a story that is getting them laughed at, and shushed by their own side, and potentially sued by the subject, when its so profoundly and utterly wrong? Is it like the sportscaster who insisted the coach was changing teams because his source was the coach but the coach had changed his mind and didn’t bother to tell him? Was The Daily Caller so bullheaded because they had an unimpeachable source - who might have been lying to them? In short, did somebody set them up? 

This is Obama’s America…and The Democratic Machine he owns has clearly been hard at work with a complex plot to discredit The Daily Caller and, in a larger sense, the Right-Wing media. 

That would explain the seemingly inexplicable: why the MSM (mainstream media) refused to circle Menendez and pick at his flailing body like he was slowly-dying roadkill and it was a hawk. 

And of course, only those at the top of The Democratic Food Chain would have the insider-knowledge necessary to make the details of the story so perfect: A US Senator and his dirty campaign money charter a private jet to a villa called Casa de Campo where he gets a 16 year old hooker and between trips, he campaigns against prostitution! It’s the type of storyline that Aaron Sorkin would kill (or more realistically, steal) to turn into his next dramedy. 

We cannot allow The Democratic Machine to wipe out its most gullible, credulous and easily-manipulated opponents. To save democracy, we must make it safe for stupidity; we must save The Daily Caller. 

Originally published in the TriCityNews, if you live in Monmouth or Ocean County, NJ - pick up a copy! (also published on SayWhatNJ.com)

Senator David Vitter - client of the “D.C. Madam” - would never walk alongside Elliot Spitzer for fear that the conclusion would be drawn that Vitter committed the exact same crime as Spitzer, the only difference being that Vitter never faced any consequences for his behavior. Just like OJ Simpson would never host a Christmas party with Scott Peterson and Britney Spears would never perform a duet with Milli Vanilli.  

Yet last Tuesday, Governor Chris Christie took another trip out of state, this time to headline two fundraisers with Governor Scott Walker in Wisconsin. It seems in joining forces with the much-loathed Wisconsin Governor, Christie is daring us to state the obvious: Walker is just Christie with a nail in his coffin.  

It’s impossible to look at the headlines bearing both of their names and not consider just how similar the New Jersey and Wisconsin governors are.  

In March of 2011, Governor Walker approved a bill which castrated collective bargaining rights. Specifically, it took away nearly all collective bargaining rights from the state’s employees. Additionally, the measure forced state workers to pay more for their pensions and health care benefits.  

In June of 2011, Governor Christie approved a bill which reformed collective bargaining rights. The rollback of benefits for 750,000 government workers and retirees increased what state and local workers must pay for their health insurance and pensions, suspended cost-of-living increases to retirees’ pension checks and raised retirement ages.  

In Wisconsin, Walker’s action was met with protests by tens of thousands which lasted for months and drew support from all over the country. The people of Wisconsin’s buyers remorse for Governor Walker means he now faces a recall election on June 5th, which, if successful, will make him only the third Governor to be recalled in US history.  

In New Jersey, Governor Christie’s action was initially met with protests by thousands down State Street. Nearly a year later, much is forgotten. Christie’s popularity is at an all-time high, with his approval rating standing at an inexplicable 59%.  

With the majority of his constituents seemingly suffering from Stockholm Syndrome, I suppose Christie sees no reason to fear any sort of uprising. Standing shoulder to shoulder with Walker was a way for him to dance close to the flame and tout his power.   

Governor Christie clearly deems it necessary to distinguish himself from the rest of America’s Right-Wing “leaders” for the GOP establishment who will ultimately decide his fate. He’s proved to the King Makers that his charisma and perceived reasonability allow him to get away with what others face losing their elected positions over. Christie doesn’t merely get away with it, he triumphs.   

Helpful as it is to Christie’s own political career, making distinctions between him and the rest of the GOP is more important for those of us who value the middle and working class people of New Jersey. Christie’s especially dangerous because he doesn’t wear his radicalism on his sleeve.  

Unlike many of his Republican contemporaries, Governor Christie does not lack intelligence or perceptiveness. When he states the patently untrue, it’s because he has full faith in the unwillingness of the American people to do the minimal intellectual work necessary in order to arrive at the truth. They will sooner latch on to any uncomplicated narrative offered to them, however fantastical it may be.  

According to Christie, we are now witnessing a “Jersey Comeback”… Where? Did you see it? Did I miss it? Rats, I must have walked right past it. The last time I checked, New Jersey was ranked 45th in job growth with unemployment still at .6% above the National average.  

After proposing that $29.4B, Scott-Walker-influenced-budget of his last year, Christie gave us his uncomplicated narrative: “we’re not trying to break the unions. The unions are trying to break the middle class in New Jersey.”   

Of course, the truth is that unions built this state’s middle class. The other truth is that a weak middle class is not only desirable for the GOP and those at the top of the economic ladder, but necessary for them to make their political ideals political reality. And people with enough money to facilitate that, like the Koch Brothers, are making good use out of Governor Christie and Governor Walker.  

Christie’s not a principled, disciplined individual. He’s a disciplined conservative who knows how to fall in line. Put another way, our governor is an opportunist with no philosophy of his own. He’s a mere vessel for those with clearly defined philosophies like his millionaire donors the Koch Brothers, and as the rollback on New Jersey’s environmental protections with Christie’s DEP Waiver Rule indicates, he’s a damn good vessel at that.   

Of Governor Walker, New Jersey Newsroom’s Salvatore Pizzuro wrote “he was sacrificing the people in an effort to protect the State. However, he failed to recognize that the people are the State.” Unfortunately for Walker, he doesn’t possess any of that Christie-mojo which prevents him from looking like the common, self-interested politician that he is.   

The people of New Jersey would be wise to recognize that the State is just Governor Christie’s resume for his National ambitions, and to him, the people are of little consequence.