In the Morning News, we learned that New Jersey Governor Chris Christie's staff left an e-mail trail linking Christie's office to a traffic scandal. It's a ridiculous, very involved story—read more here—but basically, higher-ups in Christie's office conspired to cause bad traffic jams in a town whose mayor didn't endorse Christie for re-election.

Christie, according to Time's Dan Hirschhorn, has finally gotten around to responding to the scandal:

“What I’ve seen today for the first time is unacceptable,” Christie said in a statement. “I am outraged and deeply saddened to learn that not only was I misled by a member of my staff, but this completely inappropriate and unsanctioned conduct was made without my knowledge.”

Uh huh. Still, I've seen lots of people on Twitter claiming that this bridge scandal ruins Christie's presidential chances in 2016. That's ridiculous. Are you kidding me? Unless there are actual, provable ties to Christie, this is only going to make him more appealing to Republicans. They love petty, nasty politics and provincial bluster. (Unless it's "Chicago-style politics," in which case it's practically grounds for impeachment.) This is not enough to ruin a political career, especially for a politician who prides himself on his in-your-face management style. Unless someone has a smoking gun tying Christie to all this, it's just another bit of color on an already colorful résumé.

UPDATE 2:55 PM: Oh, shit. Matt Pearce just linked to this NorthJersey.com story, and it looks like things might be getting serious after all:

Emergency responders were delayed in attending to four medical situations – including one in which a 91-year-old woman lay unconscious – due to traffic gridlock caused by unannounced closures of access lanes to the George Washington Bridge, according to the head of the borough’s EMS department.

The woman later died, borough records show.