Photograph by Foto Bocch on Flickr

Yesterday, NJ Acting Governor Stephen Sweeney announced the end of the Garden State's "state of emergency" due to the blizzard conditions. But it was only the beginning of the criticism for NJ Governor Chris Christie, who is vacationing at Disney World, and his lieutenant governor, Kim Guadagno, who is vacationing in Mexico. See, the position of lieutenant governor was created so that when the NJ governor has to leave power—hey, it's happened before—power can stay within the governor's purview, versus being kicked over the State Senate, where there may be differing views (remember when David Paterson made Richard Ravitch his #2?). In other words, having a lieutenant governor has been kinda useless so far.

Sweeney, a Democrat, has been in control since Christie and Gudagno left town before the blizzard; he called the state of emergency on Sunday and said yesterday, "While this storm hit us much worse than anticipated, the cleanup is well underway," but cautioned residents to stay inside if possible, "Even though the storm is now passed, it will be several days before we have totally cleaned up the mess left for us by Mother Nature." Sweeney also told the NY Times he wouldn't try to pass any laws or make any appointments to get back at Christie, “It wouldn’t be fair to him or his family. Just because he’s a Republican and I’m a Democrat, it doesn’t mean that I don’t respect him. But I could’ve done a lot of things."

In other Christie news, he won't make any New Year's resolutions because he'll just break 'em.