Great comment! That's one of the things that keeps me coming back for more around here...

Heh.

What I remember is the unforgettable image of Christie, after Trump's victory, waving the white flag as you put it. But it goes deeper than that. The image I remember is Christie, looking deeply, DEEPLY humiliated and embarassed to be in the position of toadying up to Trump on live TV, standing in the background while Trump blathered on about whatever nonsense he was peddling that day. Chistie looked like he wanted to kill himself rather than be there - and that's not the kind of look anyone associates with a once and future presidential candidate. Look at me, I'm a coward, weasel, schmuck, fool, pansy, creep, wimp .. these are the words his expression gave to a national TV audience.

Now you tell me he's been a commentator on ABC more lately. I didn't know that, so perhaps he actually does cherish another go-round on the national political stage. I wonder if the reason no pundits and handicappers have added Christie to the list of quasi-Trumps and anti-Trumps among the Republicans of 2024, is that he's taken the TV commentator gig. As I understood it, that's the signal that a politician has retired from politics, to start making the real money that comes from lobbying, commenting, and serving the corporate-media state from the inside.

Surely the pundits have just assumed that Christie would never give up the cushy ABC job to return to the lists, where Trumpists will remember that he spoke out boldly against the January 6 putsch in 2021, and anti-Trumpists will remember that he broke speed records checking his character, his prosecutorial honesty, and his soul at the door of the newly-forming Trump administration in 2016.

So maybe you're right, and the plasticine chew-toy named Chris Christie is the actual guy that could square the circle of a Trumpist Republican Party nominating a more or less mainstream old-style Republican in place of Donald or Ron. I never would have guessed it, so thanks for this column!