Christie refuses to bury head in sand over pics
TRENTON, N.J. — There’s Gov. Chris Christie, lounging in a beach chair in the Oval Office. There he is again, sitting in the sand as the lovers from the movie “From Here to Eternity” roll around in the surf. And there he is, relaxing outside the meat store from “The Sopranos.”
Christie is getting spoofed online and scorched in the real world after he was photographed with his family soaking up the sun on a beach that he had closed to the public over the Fourth of July weekend because of a government shutdown.
A deeply unpopular Republican serving out his final six months in office, Christie was lambasted yesterday as selfish and arrogant, with jokesters online inserting the picture of him in sandals, shorts and a T-shirt into various photos and movie and TV scenes.
“Tell Gov. Christie: Get the hell off Island Beach State Park,” read a banner carried by a plane flying up and down the New Jersey coast yesterday — paid for by a left-leaning New Jersey political consultant, mocking the time Christie told people to “get the hell off the beach” during a hurricane in 2011.
New Jersey state beaches and parks were shut down over the weekend along with motor vehicle offices and other non essential services after Christie and the Democratic-controlled legislature failed to agree on a budget for the new fiscal year.
Christie defended his beach trip, saying he had previously announced his plans to vacation at the stateowned governor’s beach house and the media had simply “caught a politician keeping his word.”
“That’s the way it goes,” Christie said Saturday about his family’s use of the beach house. “Run for governor, and you can have the residence.” Later, after he was photographed on the beach from a plane, he called it a “great bit of journalism.”