To  have top and key staff members enter into a conspiratorial scheme rooted in an abuse of power with  such ease and glee, denotes an inner circle whose culture and modus operandi are akin to Nixon and his  corrupt administration.  

When he became US Attorney after Bush II was installed, he was perceived by the bar of New Jersey as something of a joke.  He was widely considered a legal, if not intellectual, lightweight and it was pretty-explicitly stated by prominent members of the bar that the state, and US Attorney's office, would have been better served if a person experienced in something other than fundraising for Bush had been appointed to that job.  He had next-to-no criminal experience, on either side of the courtroom.

He responded to 9/11 by keeping ghost detainees in the county jails.  There is a set of statutes on the books in NJ requiring jailers to keep a complete list of all persons in their custody along with other pertinent information, which books are required to be open to anyone to inspect.  Christie and DoJ told jailers to not follow the law and to allow them to keep ghoist detainees in the New Jersey jails.  At a minimum, following the law meant they would lose federal funding (the feds the county jails pay per federal inmate per day) for their jails and be accused of aiding terrorists.  The ACLU sued and Christie's US Attorney's office intervened in state court.  In one of the more shameful decisions in New Jersey judicial history (and there's a long list), Christe ultimately won an appellate decision that the feds were not bound by state law and could keep ghost detainees in New Jersey jails.

When he was deemed to be insufficiently partisan and Rove protege Kyle Sampson wrote a list of US Attorneys to be fired with Christie's name on it - Christe turned around and papered Bob Menendez' Senate campaign with subpoenas for criminal investigations that had no merit.  The next draft of Sampson's list was short Christie's name.

And then, when running for governor in 2009 from the US Attorney's office (where, inexplicably, Obama let him remain after Inauguration Day), in the spring and summer Christie sent out a snitch to ensnare Democrats - and only Democrats - in the most-Democratic county in the state in corruption charges.  This yielded something like 32 persons charged, crippling the Democratic Party in Hudson county just in time for the election.

Both have are responsible for large quantities of people and it is virtually impossible to keep this kind of stuff from happening.

That is so long as nothing actually connects him or Obama to these political schemes.

I know it's not the same thing, but the point stands, a President/Governor can't possibly manage ever action of every single employee under them.

For the record, as despicable as it was, they only blocked off some lanes of traffic, which isn't a crime.  The end result is the same thing that happens to me once a week when there is a wreck on the freeway, stuck in traffic.  But like most political scandals, they lied about it and that probably is a crime depending who they lied to.

While I found the responses by the Governor in taking the humble-pie road today to be about as good as one could do in the situation, I do think that the public-perception damage is severe.  The hard-knocks political reality of New Jersey is bound to uncover more examples of the "bully" re-emergence, thereby lending more credence to the image of the Governor as vindictive and petty.  Maybe new Senator Cory Booker could help him find someone or some little puppy to rescue to re-build the image of straight-talking Everyman.  But even that re-building would compete in the eastern press with the NJ State Legislature's hearings wherein the Majority Leader today wondered very aloud where the Governor has been the last four months when the details of the Washington Bridge fiasco were being reported.  Or the news that in 2010 the Governor also claimed to be misled by staff in an embarrassingly heavy-handed situation.

Of course, as a Democrat, I have my clear biases.  On the one hand, Governor Christie is astute and is now saying the right things; and, as we know, that has a lot of appeal (and the story is far from over.)  OTOH, it doesn't hurt potential Republican competitors like Paul Ryan and Rand Paul (and even ol' Jeb sitting off there in Florida.)  An action rooted in power-abuse and "bully"--whether Christie knew or not--probably won't bring him down in NJ, imo.  But, the political damage isn't going to go away easily, because this situation just handed his competitors some nice Aces.

After a Superior Court judge refused to consider Wildstein's earlier request to quash the committee's subpoena, and instead ruled that Assembly Transportation Chair John Wisniewski has the authority to compel him to appear before members of his committee at today's public hearing in Trenton, Wildstein invoked his 5th Amendment rights against self-incrimination and refused to testify.

Meanwhile, six New Jersey residents filed a federal lawsuit against Christie, the state of New Jersey, the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey, and others over the traffic jams in September. The plaintiffs want it certified as a class-action suit.

Lawyer Rosemarie Arnold said she filed it after learning this week that lane closures on an approach to the George Washington Bridge were "deliberate actions." She said that her clients were late for work and that one suffered a panic attack.

4:28 p.m. ET - Amid the controversy surrounding access lane closures near the George Washington Bridge scandal for alleged political reasons, documents released Friday show that a traffic study did in fact occur.

An "early assessment" of traffic patterns on the bridge was conducted. The assessment, which was released on September 12, the fourth day of the lane closures, produced findings that detailed the number of vehicles that used the Ft. Lee section of the bridge, peak traffic hours and what the impact would be if lanes were removed or added.

Other releases seem to show what we know so far - the head of the Port Authority was angry, he wondered about emergency response times, etc.