Are conservatives being too hard on Chris Christie?

Over at NRO, Jay Nordlinger argues that conservatives' glee over Christie's "Bridgegate" may not be good for the movement:

Politics is not for everyone, heaven knows. It’s a messy business, full of compromises and concessions, half-loaves and quarter-loaves (and crumbs). Sometimes a reading group seems more inviting than politics: We can just sit around and recite Russell Kirk to one another. Reagan is Saint Ronald now, but he was very impure when he was practicing politics, leading many on the right to denounce him, or sigh over him. We’ve got to run someone in 2016: and it ain’t gonna be Sheriff Joe. Emotionally satisfying as that might be.

Because I am a Ted Cruz man — he is an old, dear friend, and I’ll be supporting him in ’16, if he runs — I should be gleeful over Christie’s tumble. I am not, however. I think that conservative rejoicing over his troubles is unseemly, and self-defeating. I don’t have to be for him 100 percent to appreciate him. Eighty percent will do, and maybe even 65.

In the days following the 2012 election, I could hardly stand to look at him. And I think his handling of the Senate vacancy in his state stank. I could go on.

Honestly, my inclinations are to be a hundred-percenter: “He hugged Obama, à la Charlie Crist? What is it with governors named Crist or Christie? Screw ’im.” But then I check myself. I realize that the loss of Chris Christie would not be a gain but a loss. We need Christie, in addition to Allen West and others who make us pump our fists with joy.