A look beyond the police tape at a live tweeted tragedy.  Exercising sound judgement is even more valuable when you're working against the clock.  The details in my column in the February issue of Governing at governing.com.

It happens three times a year on my Facebook timeline and today was one of those days.  A very familiar name popped up as a birthday reminder.  Familiar but out of place.  Out of place because Cindy is dead and has stopped having birthdays.  The same thing happens on the anniversaries of the birthdays of Terry and Reg.

This should have been a very bad day for Chris Christie. His name appeared beside the word scandal in headlines all over the country.  (In case the connection between creating artificial traffic problems and political retribution is not clear to you, Governing's Ryan Holeywell's story on the only-in-New-Jersey scandal can help.) 

What's more, the scandal seemed to draw on plot lines from rejected episodes of The Sopranos - political retribution from an allegedly jilted suitor and Christie himself sent over from central casting with that tough talking, sometimes bullying vibe.

Season 2 of For The Record opens with the introduction of Chad VanderVeen, the new editor of FutureStructure whose new beat is ... in a word ... everything.

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