In a press conference today, Feb. 8, 2013, New Jersey Governor Chris Christie brushed aside a question about his conversation with a former White House doctor who spoke publicly about Christie’s weight earlier in the week, as reported in PolitickerNJ.
When asked about the conversation today Christie replied “I had a private conversation with Dr. Mariano and I intend to keep it private,” and then moved on to another question.
Mariano wasn’t keeping it private however.
The saga began when Christie was on the David Letterman Show earlier in the week and when Letterman asked about his weight; Christie pulled a donut out of his suit pocket and started eating it, heading off Letterman’s joke. When viewing the tape the whole skit looked rehearsed and not a spur of the moment comeback, since the donut was already in his pocket.
Since then, the self-effacing humor has backfired and has caused many to open a serious debate about Christie’s health and weight. Joining in on that conversation was Dr. Connie Mariano, who served as the Dr. for Presidents George W. Bush and Bill Clinton who stated “that she feared for the governor’s health if he were ever elected president.”
That comment didn’t sit well with Christie, who stated in a press conference on Wednesday that Mariano was “a hack” in search of five minutes of fame and said that the Dr. should shut up.
You have to wonder though if a Dr. who treated two presidents cared anything about looking for 5 minutes of fame.
Since then Mariano has spoken out about Christies comments telling KTVK, a TV station in Phoenix that the governor called her over her comments which she described as “the tone of the press conference, only louder, it was hard to get anything across.” Mariano a republican was asked if she would vote for Christie if he ran for President in 2016, to which she replied “the way he acted lately I don’t think so. “He wasn’t very nice to me. Politically if this is the way he handles stress, is this presidential? I’ll have to think about that. Is this a presidential way to behave? C’mon.”
Christie does not need this kind of unwanted attention in the middle of an election year, but let’s also consider this. If Christie was a woman, would anyone, a reporter, pundit or politician, dare to make a comment over the weight?
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