Fasten your seat belts

Perhaps the thin air up there has gone to Chris Christie's head.

High-altitude wooziness could explain the utter lame-i-tude of the New Jersey governor's defensive non-response to critics who dare question his use of a state helicopter to take himself and his wife to their son's high school baseball game.

Or maybe the roar of the rotorblades between Trenton and Montvale, then back to an exclusive Drumthwacket dinner with high-end Republican admirers, caused the tone-deafness under which the usually media-wise, but apparently dollar-foolish, Christie now seems to be struggling.

Remember, this is the governor whose adroitly staged "town hall" sessions, cleverly edited YouTube videos and talk-show ubiquitousness attest to a media operation with big-picture sophistication. Christie and his crew know a thing or two about image/message control.

But when control slips away (as it will, at some point, always) the Big Guy has his spokesfolks dish up boilerplate worthy of The Onion.

"The use of air travel has been extremely limited and appropriate," the administration's Kevin Roberts proclaimed….in an email .

OK, got it, thanks.

Meanwhile, back on earth, Christie's admirers, handlers and hangers-on really should tell him that indulging in chopper rides while asking the rest of us to chop our budgets does not look good, on YouTube or anywhere else.

It looks like a rerun of politics as usual – the sort of politics the governor keeps telling us will no longer fly.