I grew up in New York but left the state after my college graduation. In the forty five years since, my immediate family has set down their roots in Pennsylvania, although the majority of my family have remained in the New York, New Jersey area. Nothing could get me to relocate to New York and I've become a strong anti-big appler in my sporting preferences, which isn't really strange for someone who lives in the metropolitan Philadelphia area.

Why this exposition on my sports preferences? I just wanted to set up the background for this article. Those of you who read my articles know that I am a proud liberal democrat. This article has nothing to do with the democratic side of me. What this article is being written about is the cowardice of the republican party,  but also the willingness to put people over party of a potential presidential candidate for 2016, who will most likely have seen his chance for that nomination slip away.  Chris Christie, for all the disagreements I've had with his politics showed me that he is a better man than 95% of those who sit in a public office. The people he represents are more important than the party he belongs to.  More on this in a few minutes.

First, however, the reader has to look at the gutless, hypocritical, anti-American republican house of representatives led by John Boehner and his tea party crony Eric Cantor. These spineless jellyfish not only didn't have the political honesty to place the "Sandy Relief Bill" on the floor for an up or down vote and kicked the can down the road. Why did they do that? They made the callous determination to separate the bill into two, one for 9 billion which they will vote for on Friday and another for 51 billion which will be voted on January 15th. This is allowing the republican hypocrites an opportunity to vote for the smaller bill and against the larger bill, yet go back to their constituents and go through their typical political doublespeak. They voted for disaster relief and they voted against disaster relief. It is the same kind of political shenanigans that say if a republican voted for a bill at 11:59 P.M. on December 31st they would be voting for a tax increase, but if they vote for the same bill at 12:01 A.M. on January 1st, they would be voting for a tax cut. Political crassness of the most awful kind.

Before everyone on the right starts complaining that the Sandy Bill is too large and loaded with pork, there has to be an understanding that within weeks, a Hurricane Katrina relief bill of 105 billion was passed. That bill had more pork in it than any other relief bill in history. All bills have pork. Some of it is necessary some isn't. It depends on the definition of pork. It may seem to be pork to place money in a relief bill for local government vehicles in New Jersey, but if those vehicles were irreparably damaged in the storm, it no longer is pork. More importantly, however, is that the so called pork is fairly well distributed between those congress-persons who are democrats and republicans. The amount of "pork" was also estimated to be approximately 1.5 billion in a 60 billion dollar bill. The question then becomes.....when the republicans vote against the 51 billion dollar bill, what are they really voting against? Are the homes, townships, and infrastructures of the middle atlantic states any less valuable to this country than those same homes, townships, and infrastructures of the gulf coast? Ask the people in New York and New Jersey.

And then we come to the governors of the states in question. It wasn't surprising that Governor Cuomo was less than complimentary to the republican congress. No one sees him as a friend of the republicans. In fact, he might be a potential presidential contender for the presidency for the democrats in the future. But Governor Chris Christie was another story. Governor Christie was a center right politician who had made a name for himself in a very blue state. Many of his programs were met with vehement opposition from moderates and liberals throughout the state, especially as they related to education and certain types of federal funding. Even though he met with President Obama after the tragedy, he was a true rising star in the republican party and appeared to be one of the front runners for the 2016 presidential nomination. All he had to do, was say the right things and assuage the republican right.

But surprise! Governor Christie decided that he represented a state with democrats, republicans and independents. His state was a mix of black, brown, white, and every other possible skin shade, Christians, Jews, Muslims, atheists, etc., the rich, the poor, and the middle class. He represented all of them, and that was more important than keeping his mouth shut. So this morning, Governor Chris Christie went on national television and eviscerated the republican congress and the leadership of that congress for what they were doing to the people of the Middle Atlantic states. He took his own party and raked them over the coals in a way that tea party elephants with long and vindictive memories will not soon forget. He called these non-legislating legislators out as the phonies and charlatans that they are. He focused the nation's eyes on the need for passage of the relief act for Sandy whether it comes up in one or two bills.  He also probably lost out on his chance to become president of the United States.

I still hate the Giants, Jets, Yankees, Mets, Knicks, Nets, Rangers, Devils, and Islanders and will keep rooting for my Eagles, Phillies, 76ers, and Flyers {though they may lose and be laughed at}, but I respect their governors. They are men of integrity and real feeling for their constituents. They are putting people over party. It is a political sacrifice but it is the noble thing to do.