Has anyone else considered why we are so driven to admonish the hypocrisy of others which we choose to see as different than ourselves -- considering the extreme universality of this quality?
Because we are convinced that our evil won't seem nearly so evil if we can only sufficiently emphasize the evilness of the other guy's evil?
Besides that, this is a genuinely interesting case. Here we have a politician who is at least marginally acceptable to both sides, even though he does not really fit either side, because of his reputation of being above petty politics. In one instance, we see that either it's all a sham and he is willing to discomfit thousands of people to very indirectly punish a politician who did not offer him something not customarily offered, or else he ran the kind of administration where multiple very high aides felt comfortable openly doing so on his behalf. I discount this supposed bombshell because had there been a legitimate traffic study this wouldn't even be a case, but either way, know or not know, Christie set out to establish that he is above petty politics and instead proved that he is the king of petty politics.