Christie Off-Base

From Yahoo:
"NJ gov strongly defends lowering flags for Houston"

Gov. Chris Christie on Wednesday strongly defended his decision to have flags lowered to half-staff on Saturday for Whitney Houston, saying he rejects criticism that she "forfeited the good things that she did" because of her struggles with substance abuse. The Republican governor said his office has been receiving emails and other messages disparaging Houston and attacking his decision to have flags flown at half-staff at state government buildings Saturday, the day of her funeral in the Newark church where she sang in the choir as a child. In online postings, there were two main arguments against the honor for the "I Will Always Love You" singer, who died over the weekend in California at age 48: One was that it should be reserved for members of the military, first responders and elected officials. The other was that it's wrong to honor a drug addict.

^ Christie is way off base on this one. He tries to always act tough and go after anyone who disagrees with him. I think in this instance he is either a closet Houston fan or trying to bring attention away from other major issues affecting his state. While Whitney Houston may have been a good singer with several hits decades ago she is in no way more deserving of flying flags at half-staff than the men and women (from New Jersey) who fought and died. Why doesn't Christie honor their sacrifice instead of a has-been who ruined her own life with drugs and alcohol while her friends and family watched her for years and did little if anything to help her? People - both the public and the government - seem to forget that American soldiers are still fighting and risking their lives in Afghanistan. Just because we left Iraq doesn't mean the other war stopped. We need to do more to honor the soldiers and get our priorities straight. ^

http://news.yahoo.com/nj-gov-strongly-defends-lowering-flags-houston-201942290.html