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MSNBC's Melissa-Harris Perry gave New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie a well needed break from the typical fawning we've seen over him and his high approval ratings in the wake of Hurricane Sandy -- and a dose of reality of what he's in for when voters start taking a closer look at his record if he throws his hat in there for the 2016 presidential primary race.

Pump your brakes, Gov. Christie:

Long after images of Hurricane Sandy’s devastation vanished from our television screens, one very visible–and very vocal–reminder has made it impossible to ignore the ongoing struggles of Sandy’s victims: New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie.

His advocacy for New Jersey’s recovery effort has extended his 15 minutes of national fame far beyond his speech at the Republican National Convention. In fact, his popularity may even have him thinking he can stretch that 15 minutes all the way to the White House in 2016.

But let’s not get too hasty. Because in my open letter this week, I’d like to remind the governor of a few things that may make him–and American voters–want to think twice.

Dear Gov. Christie,

It’s me, Melissa. Well, there’s no denying it–you are definitely having a moment. Since last year when you put partisan politics aside to praise President Obama’s disaster response to the recent kick in the pants you gave House Speaker John Boehner, it seems you’ve become the voice of America’s frustration with Washington. And as a resident of a city that knows all too well what it means to rebuild in the wake of catastrophe, I know the people of New Jersey are grateful to have you as a champion.

You can tell by your 73% approval rating. And even more impressive, as a Republican governor of a blue state, you’ve managed to get 62% approval among Democrats, 70% among women, and 69% among people of color. That makes you almost a shoo-in for re-election this year. No doubt all that love has got you feeling like it’s all aboard the Christie train–next stop, the White House!

But not so fast. I’m going to need you to pump your brakes.

Your ability to lead people through the aftermath of a disaster does not qualify you to be president of the United States. Just ask Rudy Giuliani.

Oh, that Time Magazine cover line certainly had it right–you are the master of disaster. It’s just that the disaster struck long before Hurricane Sandy came ashore. Let’s hope you do a better job presiding over the state’s storm recovery than you’ve done presiding over New Jersey’s economic recovery. Because New Jersey’s economic performance ranked 47th in the nation in 2011. And right now, the [New Jersey] unemployment rate is 9.6%–surpassing the national rate by almost 2%.

It seems, governor, that residents are still waiting on that so-called “Jersey Comeback” you claimed had already begun.

And so much for your reputation for telling the hard truths–or telling the truth at all. When you ran for governor, you promised not to cut pensions, property tax rebates, or education spending. When you became governor, you promptly cut all three. Oh, and there’s also the matter of those other cuts you proposed–the tax cuts for New Jersey’s wealthiest residents. You even went so far as to veto–not once, not twice, but three times–a tax increase on millionaires.

Given your policy preferences for the wealthy, is it any wonder that it took a natural disaster and some convincing from President Obama before you could get some reciprocation in your love for Bruce Springsteen? You know his every lyric, so you also know that The Boss–I mean the real Boss–in his songs celebrates the working class. The same folks who suffer when you refuse to raise the state’s minimum wage or when you cut the earned income tax credit for low-income residents, or cut $7.4 million from reproductive health care services.

Thanks to you, the women of New Jersey now have six fewer family planning clinics. Those that remain saw 26,000 fewer patients after your budget cuts. That’s fewer breast exams, fewer cancer screenings – fewer lives that could be saved with preventative care. So yes, by all means, enjoy your moment. You’ve earned it.

But thanks to your policy record you’ve also earned what’s coming to you in 2016–and I have a feeling America’s voters are going to give you exactly what you deserve.

Sincerely,

Melissa

Check out the link above for Melissa's panel discussion on the Governor's record.

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After we saw New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie and New York Rep. Peter King tear into House Speaker John Boehner for cancelling the vote on Hurricane Sandy relief over the holidays, Jon Stewart took his turn upon returning from vacation this Monday and he got some knocks in at the rest of the House Republicans as well.

Stewart singled out Representatives Paul Ryan and Steven Palazzo for voting against the bill once Boehner finally did bring it to the floor, and as we noted here as did Think Progress, they weren't alone. 67 of them voted against the bill, 37 of whom had previously asked for disaster aid for their home states.

Here's how Stewart concluded his rant:

“This is just a simple down the middle, black and white, cut and dry, warm cup of what would Jesus or any other human being that is not an asshole do, and you blew it,” Stewart remarked.

Ryan said he opposed the disaster relief funds because the legislation contained “pork-barrel spending.”

“It’s one f**king page,” Stewart said, aghast. “It’s two paragraphs that add 9.7 billion to the national flood insurance program and nothing else. There is as much pork in here as in the mini-fridge in the break-room at PETA. There is no pork in this thing!”

This has to be one of the most pitiful things I've read in a long time. It's bad enough that Romney refused to come off the campaign trail for a day and then pretended he wasn't really campaigning, but having a "relief event" instead. Now we get treated to this -- Romney compares Sandy relief to cleaning up after high-school football game:

And to buff his own image as a disaster-relief specialist, Romney compared the Sandy relief effort to … his experience cleaning up the field after a high-school football game. Seriously.

I remember once we had a football field at my high school. The field was covered with rubbish and paper goods from people who’d had a big celebration there at the game. And there was a group of us there assigned to clean it up. And I thought, ‘how are we going to clean up all the mess on this football field?’ There were just a few of us. And the person responsible for organizing the effort said, ‘Just line up along the yard lines. You go between the goal line and the 10-yard line, and the next person between the 10 and 20, and just walk down and do your lane. And if everybody cleans their lanes, we’ll get it done.’ And so today, we’re cleaning one lane if you will.

MSNBC’s Lawrence O’Donnell wasn’t buying it. In his Rewrite segment on Wednesday’s edition of The Last Word, he did a play-by-play on what he called the Romney campaign’s “fake” storm relief event.

“Because the desperate and shameless Romney campaign believes it cannot win the election without winning Ohio, Team Romney pushed their candidate out on a stage in Ohio yesterday,” O’Donnell explained. “Because the storm was still in progress in some states and the death count was climbing in New York and elsewhere, traditional political decency dictated that Mitt Romney be not caught campaigning yesterday.”

Buzzfeed also reported Romney campaign staffers stocked up beforehand on $5,000-worth of canned foods and other essentials at a Wal-Mart the night before — “to put on display while they waited for donations to come in.”

h/t Captain Kangaroo

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Here we go again with Ron Paul telling victims of natural disasters that they'd be better off without FEMA or federal disaster relief. On CNN's State of the Union, we got Ron Paul redux from his statements back in August of last year he said "we should be like 1900" and return to the era before there was government assistance to help rebuild cities devastated by natural disasters.

Transcript via:

CROWLEY: Let me turn you to a domestic issue. I'm sure you know that tornadoes have hit a wide swath of states, particularly in the Midwest, about 10 states. The damage is enormous.

You have frequently been critical of FEMA, the Federal Emergency Management Agency and the federal money that is given to some of these home owners and those that are also -- other victims of storms like this. Is there a role for federal money in helping all of these citizens get their lives back together?

PAUL: Not really, because it's not authorized and there is no such thing as federal money. Federal money is just what they steal from the states and steal from you and me. So there is no federal money unless you say, well, they can print it and cause internal problems.

But to say you don't support federal money doesn't mean you don't care about people, because FEMA is inefficient. I've lived on the Gulf Coast and I got re-elected constantly by criticizing FEMA because of people who had to put up with FEMA after the hurricanes, had nothing but frustration and anger with them.

And to point out, well, they might give you a home, yes, they bought a lot of trailers for Katrina, you know, and it's just so wasteful, inefficient. But, you know, the Guard units and other things within the states certainly is there. The people who live in Tornado Alley just as I live in a hurricane alley, they should have insurance for doing this.

But under major emergency, natural disasters, if there is a need, you know, for some help such as the military to come in, that is not a tragic violation, but to say that any accident that happens in the country, send in FEMA, send in the money, the government has all this money, it's totally out of control and it's not efficient.

There's a much better way of doing this and helping it. The FEMA, I was constantly told by the people of my district, they just get in the way. They take over law enforcement. They take over and they hinder the voluntary group and they hinder the state organization, exactly opposite of what we should be doing.

So if you were one of the unfortunate people to find themselves with their homes destroyed during these monstrous storms that ripped a good deal of the country apart over the weekend, Ron Paul doesn't want FEMA getting in the way of that recovery. I wonder who he thinks is going to rebuild those towns that literally got wiped off the map with virtually nothing left of them?

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As House Republicans threaten another government shutdown if they don't get some steep cuts in return for disaster relief and as Democrats look like they're finally standing up to the hostage taking, what do we get from David Gergen, Gloria Borger and host Anderson Cooper on CNN? More false equivalencies and the "both sides" are playing politics game.

For a more honest assessment of what's going on, here's more from TPM -- CRUNCH TIME: House GOP Jams Senate With Government Funding Bill, Partisan Budget Cuts For Disaster Aid:

House Republicans closed ranks just after midnight on Friday morning, and passed legislation to avert a government shutdown at the end of the month. The vote tally was 219-203.

But the bill received almost no Democratic support and faces an uncertain future in the U.S. Senate because Republicans have used the funding bill as a vehicle for disaster relief money, and insisted it be paid for by slashing funds for jobs programs Democrats support. Dems say the GOP legislation provides insufficient aid, and sets a dangerous precedent by requiring those funds to be offset with partisan budget cuts.

"The bill the House will vote on tonight is not an honest effort at compromise," said Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-NV) in a statement anticipating its passage. "It fails to provide the relief that our fellow Americans need as they struggle to rebuild their lives in the wake of floods, wildfires and hurricanes, and it will be rejected by the Senate."

A livid Senate Majority Whip Dick Durbin (D-IL) told reporters Thursday night "We're fed up with this...we're sick of it, we're tired of it."

Democrats are pushing Republicans to strip the disaster aid provisions from the bill entirely and pass a clean funding bill, and separate, emergency, Senate-passed legislation to provide relief to disaster-stricken regions across the country. At her weekly press conference Thursday, House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) pointed to a potential compromise. Read on...

UPDATE: It appears that we had some bipartisan objection to the House's hostage taking in the Senate -- Cram It! Senate Dems And Republicans Reject Holding Disaster Aid Hostage.

Gergen and Borger's hackery from CNN last night below the fold.

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Keith Olbermann didn't pull any punches with how he felt after reading a Tweet by Donald Rumsfeld saying he'd canceled his subscription to the New York Times after reading Paul Krugman's op-ed on 9/11.

From Countdown's Worst Persons:

OLBERMANN: Rumsfeld was bothered by that for some reason? Rumsfeld? Who with Cheney and Bush and all the others took the unanimity of that left and right gave them and exploited it in order to start a phony war in Iraq. Who ruined this nation's standing internationally with torture designed to get false information. Who spied on Americans without any law saying they could. Who fostered Islamophobia. Who spread panic and manipulated counter terror efforts to advance their own political power. That Rumsfeld?

Why did he cancel his subscription? Because Krugman didn't give him enough credit for all that? I've said it before and I'll say it again. Remembering that terrorism is as much about compelling irrational fear as it is about actual violence, between 2002 and 2009, the leading terrorists groups in this country were the Republican party and the presidential administration of George W. Bush.

Donald Rumsfeld, shut up! Today's Worst Person in the World.

Runners up were Rep. Peter King -- At UK terror inquiry, Rep. King defends IRA terror.

And Sen. Jeff Sessions -- Senate GOP largely quiet as Dems score points over disaster funding bill.

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Looks like Republican Majority Leader Eric Cantor is getting some push back from Republican governors in states ravaged by Hurricane Irene after his statements calling for budget cuts before funding for disaster relief.

As Ed Schultz discussed during this segment, it looks like Cantor may be backing away from his rigid stance, even if it's ever so slightly, now that he's being criticized from the likes of his state's Gov. Bob McDonnell and New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie.

From ThinkProgress -- Republican Revolt: Virgina’s GOP Governor Splits With Cantor, Rejects Conditioning Disaster Aid On Budget Cuts:

House Majority Leader Eric Cantor (R-VA), along with some of his House GOP colleagues, have been saying that disaster aid for the areas affected by Hurricane Irene must be offset by, in Cantor’s words, “savings elsewhere.” Rep. David Schweikert (R-AZ) said yesterday on Bloomberg News that budget cuts must be a prerequisite for disaster aid in order to reassure “the business markets.” Rep. Peter Roskam (R-IL) added that the days when disaster relief could be funded without offsetting budget cuts “are gone.”

However, not everyone in the GOP agrees that disaster funding should play second fiddle to the GOP’s budget-slashing agenda. Gov. Bob McDonnell (R-VA) yesterday broke with Cantor, saying that “I don’t think it’s the time to get into that [deficit] debate“:

Virginia GOP Gov. Bob McDonnell, breaking with Cantor, on Tuesday suggested that deficit-spending concerns should not be a factor as Congress and the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) respond to the hurricane.

“My concern is that we help people in need,” McDonnell said during his monthly radio show. “For the FEMA money that’s going to flow, it’s up to them on how they get it. I don’t think it’s the time to get into that [deficit] debate.”

New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie didn't have any kind words for Cantor and his fellow Republicans as well and slammed them for the games they were playing during the debt-ceiling hostage taking, and said the citizens of his state weren't going to wait around for similar games with their disaster relief. From the HuffPo -- Chris Christie: Don't Delay Hurricane Irene Disaster Aid Over Federal Spending Cuts:

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