Christie: Too unfit for the Oval Office?

Is Chris Christie too fat to be president? asked Maureen Mackey in The Fiscal Times. Former White House doctor Connie Mariano publicly raised that question last week when she described the obese New Jersey Republican governor as “a time bomb waiting to happen.” The Republican physician—who served Presidents George H.W. Bush, Bill Clinton, and George W. Bush—told CNN that if the popular Christie were to run for president in 2016, she would “worry about this man dying in office.” A furious Christie called her a “hack,” saying that unless she’d seen his private medical records, “she should shut up.” Christie claims to be “the healthiest fat man you’ve ever seen,” said Jeff Schweitzer in HuffingtonPost.com. But if a man who weighs upwards of 300 pounds is healthy, “he would be a medical miracle.” Obesity greatly increases the risk of death by stroke, heart attack, or cancer—risks that will rise if Christie gets the nation’s most stressful job.

“Cut the guy some freaking slack,” said Michelle Cottle in TheDailyBeast.com. Everyone knows that being overweight is bad for your health, but why is Christie’s bulging waistline “more problematic than, say, John Boehner’s manic chain-smoking or crazy tanning fetish?” And what about all the “borderline alcoholics” we’ve elected to Congress over the years? What’s really at play here is simple snobbery. Skinny coastal elites think of obesity as a disease of the lower classes, and “equate fatness with weakness—a lack of discipline, self-control, or character.” In America, however, two out of three people are overweight, said Jonathan Tobin in CommentaryMagazine.com. So Christie’s weight may not trouble voters at all. In fact, the governor’s extra pounds give “him an everyman sort of appeal that is political gold.”

Christie’s weight won’t keep him from being elected president, said Joan Walsh in Salon.com, but his temper will. His public tirade against Dr. Mariano lasted a full minute and a half, and then he called her to berate her personally. It wasn’t the first time Christie has acted like an overbearing bully. He’s shouted at constituents who’ve dared question his policies, and called reporters “stupid” and “idiot” for asking simple questions. There’s a lot to like about the hard-working political maverick, but his rage and lack of self-control will be his undoing. “Ironically, for a guy who’s famous for his size, his biggest problem is being thin-skinned.”

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