Blockhead

Chris Christie Declares War on Fitness

NJ governor/GOP presidential aspirant declares, ‘There’s a rock climbing wall epidemic going on.’

The man who shamelessly spent $300,000 of taxpayers’ money on food and drink has decided that indoor climbing walls at colleges and universities are not only a waste of money, but also a scourge of “epidemic” proportions. New Jersey Governor turned GOP presidential candidate Chris Christie lashed out at the athletic installations during a town hall meeting in New Hampshire late last week.

“What have I found as I’ve gone around the country? There’s a rock climbing wall epidemic going on,” he said. “There’s a rock climbing wall at Notre Dame. Two of them in fact. There’s a rock climbing wall at Princeton. I went to Iowa State. There’s a rock climbing wall there. They’re everywhere. God knows what else they’re building on these campuses that’s costing us a ton of money that we don’t know. Imagine if you saw your bill and then we had 1 percent of your tuition went to the rock climbing wall?”

He then turned his ire on the local state university in New Hampshire.

“You have rocks. Right out there,” he chided. “What the hell do you need a rock climbing wall for? Tell the kids at UNH, ‘Go outside and climb those rocks.’ Not the rocks inside. Climb the other rocks.”

It’s unclear just why Christie chose these seemingly innocuous fitness objects as a source of angst, when in traveling around the country trying to work his way into the voting public’s good graces he must have noticed a great many other social ills that more demanded his attention. Poverty? Crime? Race relations? Why worry about them when you can just yell at a wall?

If you have the fortitude, the full meeting is below.

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James Joiner

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