Corruption central

Gov. Chris Christie’s taste for extravagance seems only rivaled by his taste for corruption:

Letting the king pay for his three-day weekend in Jordan back in 2012 would not have been allowed if Mr. Christie were, say, president or a United States senator; it is illegal for federal employees to accept gifts of more than nominal value from agents of foreign governments. An executive order Mr. Christie signed in 2010 allows New Jersey governors to have travel and related expenses paid by foreign governments; it does not specifically address gifts such as the parties the king held for him, but the governor’s staff said it was covered under a provision that allowed gifts from personal friends.

Mr. Christie has described it as a matter of opportunity. “I relish these experiences and exposures, especially for my kids,” he told a reporter for The Times last summer. “I try to squeeze all the juice out of the orange that I can.”

Thank god he would not be allowed to carry on like this as president, but even if New Jersey law technically allows governors to accept trips from foreign administrations, shouldn’t an elected official with any ethical integrity whatsoever respectively have declined such displays of blatant lavishness, even as members of his own constituency grind away in poverty? Indeed, the more I read about Christie’s various activities, the sicker to my stomach I become.

I would like to say that Christie doesn’t have a snowball’s chance in hell of coming within a sniff of the presidency, but he is one of the two remaining “establishment” Republicans at this point after Mitt Romney announced that he would not run.