Angry Chris Christie Attacks 'Poster Boy' of Failed Public Education

From the Daily Record:

The school board approved a 5-year contract extension for Superintendent Lee Seitz on Tuesday night, just hours after Gov. Chris Christie slammed Seitz at a town hall meeting in Berkeley for seeking a salary well above Christie's proposed superintendent salary cap. ...

...Christie's protracted rebuke in Berkeley [was] a seemingly unprecedented denunciation of a local school official by a sitting governor that went on for nearly four minutes. Christie mentioned Seitz by name, several times, blasting the superintendent as "the new poster boy for all that's wrong with a public school system that is being dictated by greed."

"Let me tell you something, I'm going to be speaking out loudly and clearly every day I can about Lee Seitz," Christie said. "If Lee Seitz wants to try to put his greed and his arrogance ahead of the taxpayers of New Jersey, you elected me to stand up to people like Lee Seitz and others across the state and I will."

Christie's proposed superintendent pay caps would limit salaries starting at $125,000 in small districts to $175,0000 in large districts. Seitz's $212,020 salary will rise to $216,240 starting Dec. 1, followed by annual two percent raises. He admitted to the Daily Record that the timing of his new contract will allow him to avoid the pending pay caps.

Stephen Gutowski over at Eyeblast.tv (which brings us the video) believes that Christie is on thin ice with his latest public tongue lashing. However, that doesn't mean he's out of line:

Calling out individuals can be extremely hazardous. It can make you appear mean and, well, like a bully… hence the name [bully pulpit]. However, calling out an individual in a position of power who is using that power to cheat taxpayers out of their money seems, to me, a perfectly acceptable use of Christie’s position.