Joseph Sabino Mistick: Chris Christie, the truth-teller

The “Calumny of Apelles” is a famous 15th-century painting by Sandro Botticelli that depicts the isolation of a truth teller. The painting shows nine figures, with the unadorned Truth at the far left. On the far right is the king, the decider, seated on an elevated throne.

And separating the Truth from the decider, distracting him and blocking the decider’s view of the Truth, is an array of figures whose names are Conspiracy, Slander, Fraud, Envy, Suspicion and Ignorance.

Think Gov. Chris Christie these days when you look at the Truth. The decider in this painting is the American voter. And all those other characters have been enlisted by Donald Trump and his supporters to encourage and validate his most outlandish lies, keeping the American voter from seeing the truth.

Christie may strike many as an unlikely truth-teller regarding Trump. He quickly fell into line behind Trump after losing the 2016 nomination to him. He coached Trump in debate preparation for his successful first term and again for his unsuccessful reelection campaign. He was one of the first top Republicans to endorse Trump in 2016 and remained an adviser during Trump’s first term.

But Christie began to drift away after Trump’s 2020 defeat. Instead of promoting the “Big Lie” that the election was rigged, Christie was skeptical and said that Trump needed to provide some evidence of fraud.

As The New York Times’ Maggie Haberman wrote in June, the last time the two spoke was after Christie advised Trump to concede to Joe Biden. According to Christie, “He told me he would never, ever, ever, ever do that.” Since then, the gloves have been off.

Nearly all of the other Republicans now seeking the nomination tiptoe around Trump. When asked if they agree with Trump’s “Big Lie,” a dodge is more likely than an honest answer from that crowd. But Christie not only pins the 2020 loss on Trump, he blames Trump for the midterm losses by Trump’s hand-picked candidates.

“On promises both big and small, he broke them. He disappointed our party. He disappointed the country,” Christie told CNN recently.

“I think character is destiny for this country, and we’ve got to make a decision about what the character of the person should be who sits behind the desk in the Oval Office,” he said.

Reacting to another of Trump’s trademarked schoolyard insults about his weight, Christie said, “It just renewed in my own mind what a child he is. He’s a baby.” He told Fox News that Trump “should take a look in the mirror every once in a while.”

After Christie was booed for telling the crowd at the recent Faith and Freedom Conference gathering in Washington, D.C., that Trump has “let us down,” he told ABC’s “This Week,” “But they need to hear the truth, too.”

Christie is only showing 5% in the polls at this time. Even if that’s not much, he started at zero. Some people are encouraged by his progress and hope that it will grow and prove that the truth is still worth something.

There is another figure in Botticelli’s painting, a dark haggard figure standing close to the Truth, looking mournfully at the Truth. That figure is Repentance. And it looks to me that it is here that Chris Christie may have found his role.