While N.J. Gov. Chris Christie told the press Friday that he’s feeling “fabulous” after an asthma attack sent him to the hospital Thursday, the staggering amount of bad wishes from the public in response to his health scare could make anyone feel a bit sick.
Social networks like Facebook and Twitter were dripping with venom from comments following news stories and alerts about the governor being rushed to a hospital for tests after having difficulty breathing.
And while the commenters may have been motivated by opposition to Christie’s politics and budget cuts, few addressed his policies. Most addressed his weight and some were giddy for the possibility that the governor could stop breathing completely.
On NBC Philadelphia’s article and Facebook pages there were more than 100 comments of this nature.
“Woot woot yayyyyyyyyyyyyy choke on his lunch maybe,” Lynne Michele Joesphine Walsh wrote on NBC Philadelphia’s Facebook page.
“Good maybe [he’ll] stop breathing,” writes Antoine Yarbrough.
“Allergies my butt, he had a fat attack,” Chuck Cobb wrote on NBC Philadelphia’s article.
NBC Philadelphia Twitter follower @tzammetti responded to an article about Christie’s tests coming back normal: “Yeah, normal for Jabba the Hutt.”
@RealMattThomas tweeted us, “I was hoping that article would just say “he’s really fat!” in all caps.”
Only a few commenters were concerned for Christie’s health.
“These remarks are terrible,” Jennifer Winter, one of the few appalled at the feedback, wrote on Facebook. “Like him or not he is a person.”
“You may not like his politics, but don't talk about his health like that,” Stephanie Lanza wrote. “…I'm ashamed of the inconsiderate behavior of some of the people in this country.”
Citizen commenters weren’t the only ones directing their attention toward Christie’s weight. The LA Times took the opportunity to poll its readers on whether or not the governor’s weight would affect their decision to vote for him in a presidential election. Its headline read, “Chris Christie: Does he have the look of a president?”
Taking some offense to this, Star-Ledger op-ed writer Carly Rothman writes, “Today in New Jersey, the story of the day is the governor's health, not his waistline. But if elsewhere in the country, a question is being raised about Christie's appearance and his electability, let New Jersey be a lesson: it ain't going to stop him.”
Perhaps weight is the only thing about a person’s appearance that is still socially acceptable to insult. Had the Internet existed, we wonder if the same would have been done to F.D.R. for his polio in the days when calling someone a “cripple” was socially acceptable.
