Chris Christie’s theory of broads

Well, that was unfair, wasn’t it? As I’ve said before, this is the blogosphere, where unfairness is a way of life. My headline should be “Chris Christie’s mother’s theory of broads,” which doesn’t quite have the same ring. But, anyway, here is Chris Christie’s mother’s theory of broads, as Chris explained it for the Republican Convention last night:

“The greatest lesson Mom ever taught me, though, was this one: she told me there would be times in your life when you have to choose between being loved and being respected. She said to always pick being respected, that love without respect was always fleeting — but that respect could grow into real, lasting love. Now, of course, she was talking about women.”*

Unpacking Mom, I come up with this: “When a cute guy says he loves you, girls, keep that aspirin tablet tight between your knees. When he says he respects you, make him prove it with a ring!”

The point of Chris’s riff is that Republicans respect the American people. We’re going to put you on a diet—a fiscal one, anyway—and we won’t get you pregnant. No debt, and no abortions! Sounds like a plan to me!

Afterwords
At Politico, Dylan Byers remarks that “The talk of the town tonight is that New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie stole Mitt Romney’s thunder with tonight’s keynote speech at the GOP convention. Political pundits noted that Christie’s speech was almost entirely about himself, with heavy emphasis on ‘I,’ while many on Twitter wondered if it wasn’t Christie himself who was vying for the White House. MSNBC’s Rachel Maddow called it ‘an act of political selfishness.’” Byers politely (or ballessly) headlines the post “Senior Romney adviser: ‘Christie did exactly what we asked.’”

Speaking of girls, over at Slate, William Saletan has a nice column walking back his love letter to Paul Ryan, pointing out that no nonsense Paul is now promising to balance the budget while 1) berating the Defense Department for not asking for enough money and 2) berating the Obama Administration for daring to cut Medicare spending, the same cuts that he was relying on to balance the budget.

Update
Via Andrew Sullivan, Andy McCarthy at the National Review unloads on Chris as follows:

“If someone had said the main speech would be an out-of-place exercise in autobiography and self-adulation that couldn’t have had more I’s in it if every other word had been Mississippi, you’d have figured we must be talking about the other guys’ convention, right?

Was the GOP’s goal to add self-absorption to Big Government, the Arab Spring, and suppression of conservatives on the list of things they can do just as well as Democrats? If so, they’re off to a flying start.”