I just watched the 17-minute opening of last night's Rachel Maddow show.

It's her job to stretch out a simple idea into 17 minutes, but it's painful to watch.

Let me save you some time...

Synopsis

• The crazy shutdown of the GWB had nothing to do with the endorsement of the mayor of Fort Lee, New Jersey.

• It was about the NJ State Supreme Court and the State Senate and Christie of course.

• In 2010, Christie refused to re-appoint a judge.

• The NY Times ran an editorial.

• The NJ State Senate was livid.

• They refused to approve of Christie's appointments to replace him.

• He refuses to re-appoint a Republican member of the court, the wife of a member of his administration, not wanting to put her through the approval process by "animals."

• The Democratic leader of the Senate represents (drumroll please) Fort Lee.

• All this came to a head on August 12, the day before of the famous email saying it was time for Fort Lee to have "some traffic problems."

Sidebar

• Fort Lee was a punchline in a standard SNL skit in the early years.

• Roseanne Rosannadanna, played by Gilda Radner, would always respond to letters from "Richard Feder of Fort Lee, New Jersey."

• I'm pretty sure this has nothing to do with the Christie scandal.