THE SPEED OF GOVERNMENT

Last week, State Education commissioner Bret Schundler struck a deal with the New Jersey Education Association to get the statewide teachers' union support for the state's "Race to the Top" application. New Jersey is hoping to get $400 million in education aid from the federal government and having the backing of the NJEA is vitally important.

Yesterday, Governor Chris Christie dropped a bombshell telling reporters that he rejected Schundler's compromise and that he forced his education boss to work over the Memorial Day weekend to draft an application, "that the Christie Administration could support."

Christie signed the redone application at 11:30am yesterday and that's when the bureaucratic morrass that is government took over. Christie said yesterday, "As an aside in what is typical of what is so wrong in government, imagine this; in this age of electronic filing of everything and e-mailing and burning things on DVDs, my original signature must be hand-delivered to Washington by 4pm, hand-delivered by 4pm today."

"They don't take it by e-mail. It's kind of crazy," explained the Governmor. "I don't think some rogue element in the goverment is going to try and forge my signature or that it's easier to forge electronically than it is on a regular page. I had to sign it by 11:30am so we could get somebody into a car so and drive to Washington so they could give it to somebody in the Department of Education. If you don't think government's crazy let me tell you, I get an education every day about how nutty government is."