Oh what a difference a bridge scandal can make. Seeking to make a return to his comfort zone, Gov. Christie held forth in his first town hall meeting of 2014 Friday in Port Monmouth. Seeing blood in the water, the New York Times chose to emphasize what a hard time the crowd gave the governor.

Not so the Inquirer, which pictured Christie back at the top of his game. Even more striking was former Inquirer reporter Matt Katz’s glowing report for New Jersey Spotlight.  Most notable in Katz’s account was the blame Christie was directing at the federal government for not getting money into the hands of Sandy victims, excuses that Newsworks’ Rob Tornoe isn’t buying.

Blaming federal regulations is serious business, not the least after the governor milked national assistance for all it was worth in the aftermath of the storm. But as Bill Wolfe, a former Department of Environmental Protection planner and policy analyst who now heads New Jersey Public Employees for Environmental Responsibility, pointed out in his account of the February 20 meeting:

• The federal regulations at issue (HUD and FEMA) were known in advance of Sandy.
• Compliance with those regulations should have been a core part of the plan and  program that the Christie administration designed.
• The Christie administration selected a private consultant to write NJ’s plan and design NJ’s programs. Then they relied on private consultants to administer the programs.
• The Christie administration wrote the RFP and the specifications of the contracts for those services.

Only today did a Christie administration representative state on the record that the state’s termination of a contract with HGI to administer Sandy Funds was due to incompetence.

Once the jewel in the crown of Christie’s case for re-election, the Sandy effort is looking increasingly like an anchor that could drag down his entire administration. Were people upset in Fort Monmouth? If they were, it should be reported. Did they have a right to be upset? Time will tell, as anecdotal reporting gives way to the kind of analysis the Fair Share Housing Center has been doing about prejudicial uses of the funds. The governor reverted to calling this group “hacks.” It’s unlikely he’ll be quite so emboldened if the facts point to his incompetency, not to those whom he would blame.