Via the Right Scoop, witness the power of this fully armed and operational hot-button Death Star. First it got Reid in trouble with his base, now it’s got Christie in trouble with his. The grand irony? Christie, of course, was trying to stay out of the fray but couldn’t resist a little tut-tutting of bad actors. Which … was precisely the mistake Obama made in abandoning his “it’s a local issue” view for what he said at the Ramadan dinner last week.

The money question: Did he speak up for strategic reasons, as I suggested earlier, or was this from the heart? He’s built such a golden rep among grassroots righties for his fiscal conservatism that he might figure it’s worth taking a little heat from them over this in hopes of appealing to centrists and indies. He’s still a blue-state governor, after all, and he’s surely got his eye on 2016. Clever or stupid? (It’s a fine line, I know.)