Today's Chris Christie Lesson in Government

Many politicians (see Michael Bloomberg) would wilt under this kind of pressure, but not NJ Gov. Chris Christie:

To all the critics of New Jersey Governor Chris Christie's Florida vacation during one of the worst snow storms in his state's history, the governor has one message: chill out.

Christie weathered a storm of attacks this week following his decision to keep a planned post-Christmas holiday with his wife and four children to Disney World, while the Garden State dug itself out of up to three feet of snow that fell December 26. But, he told detractors, he had more important things to do than "showboat on the back of a plow" in New Jersey.

"I made a promise to my children that at the end of my first year of governor that I was going to take them to Disney World," Christie explained Friday at a press conference on his state's request for federal disaster aid.

"My first and most important responsibility, in my view, is as a husband and a father, and I think I made that pretty clear to the people of New Jersey when I was running [for governor]."

Besides, Christie argued, there isn't anything he would have done in New Jersey to manage the crisis that he couldn't have done from the road.

"I have to tell you, I would have been doing the same thing here [in New Jersey] as I was there," he said. "I would not have been out driving a plow, ok? I would have been in a room someplace on a telephone saying, ‘What's going on? What do you need? Why is this happening or why isn't this happening?' and that's exactly the same thing I was doing in... Florida."

Mrs. Christie is no shrinking violet either:

So maybe you can't really promise children a trip to Disney World and then take it away. But Christie is not a single parent. Why didn't his wife manage the kids solo while the governor stayed in the Garden State?

"Send my wife to Disney World with my four kids by herself? Oh, that would be an interesting move-I would then be divorced," Christie joked.

"She just looked me and she said, ‘I know that look, and don't you think about it. Don't you think about not getting on that airplane with those children.'"

"I was not going to rescind my child's Christmas gift, especially when I was convinced that we had a plan in place," Christie continued. "This is not like in the 1800s where no one would be able to get me-believe me, my cell phone was ringing where I was, much more than I would have preferred it to when I was away on a family vacation. I was not going to look at my children and say, ‘no we are not going."

Read the rest of it - there's more good stuff in his reaction to the press.  If good plans are in place the boss doesn't have to be there for everything to work well.