Dear fellow Americans, can we stop appending the suffix “-gate” to every scandal which pops up? Imagine scandals of the past: Teapot Dome-gate! Savings & Loan-gate! Abscam-gate! Keating Five-gate!
And so on. There was only one Watergate and barring the resignation of another President there will probably only BE one Watergate. Enough already with the suffix.
As to the events being called that, Governor Christie has apparently fostered an atmosphere in his inner circles which caused several staff members to think that retribution for perceived slights to his august person was not only desirable but required. I’ve never understood why the press loved the guy, whose behavior is pretty much that of a schoolyard bully from all I can tell. And don’t nobody tell me he’s got Jerseyites’ interests at heart, not when one of his first actions as Governor four years ago was to blow off $3.4B of federal funding for a desperately-needed new tunnel between his state and New York City. Nope. Christie has his own interests at heart, first, last and all the time.
Amen to the -gate thing. People rush to append -gate to everything they can, and in their rush to be first sometimes make minor events into “scandals”.