Chris Christie and Bill Janklow

 News that Chris Christie is a bully who screws over those who don't support him or otherwise displease him should come as no surprise.  Aside from the coverage of him and President Obama making nice to each other after Hurricane Sandy, he has accrued a rather extensive public record of being an asshole.  

People in South Dakota are inured to such carrying on.  They lived through four terms of Bill Janklow.  Despite some things he did that were the post mortem focus,  for many he is remembered as being the consummate bully.  He was unrestrained in his use of intimidation and vindictiveness to attain his political goals. 

What prompts this post is an offhand remark someone made in my hearing that he had little interest in the Christie matter and could not understand why the news media made such a national case out of something that was irrelevant to folks in South Dakota.  So that such souls won't feel left out,  I remind them of Janklow's machinations.  The difference is that New Jersey and New York have a press that digs for all the facts.  South Dakota doesn't, as demonstrated by the handlling of the Northern Beef Packers bankruptcy and the EB-5 investment program.

On that point, a comment was made on a blog that the people of South Dakota for the most part do not understand the EB-5 business.  Again, that is because South Dakota does not have a press that reports or explains things.