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Remind Me Not to Piss Off Chris Christie

Just watched his press conference on Sandy disaster relief. Brutal. He started in with some historical comparisons--this disaster received federal aid in 28 days, that one in 17 days...With Sandy, it's 66 days and counting.

At that point, he could have said something like, "This is the fault of Washington dysfunction." But that isn't what he said. He said that the blame for this lands squarely in one place: The House majority, and their leader, John Boehner.

He savaged Boehner and his own party serially throughout this press conference. "I called the speaker four times last night. He didn't take my calls." And on and on and on--and on.

This is, I think, enormously damaging to the House GOP. It's one of their own, or at least another Republican. And Christie came across as very credible, he was at his no-b.s., regular-guy best. The Sandy failure will resonate and hurt the Republicans going forward.

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Michael Tomasky

Newsweek/Daily Beast special correspondent Michael Tomasky is also editor of Democracy: A Journal of Ideas.

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