Bill Maher thinks MSNBC is a little too obsessed with the Chris Christie story.
When Rachel Maddow appeared as a guest on "Real Time" Friday night, Maher asked if her network wasn't going over the top in covering the scandal enveloping the New Jersey governor's office.
"It's the top story every night. It's two months into this scandal and I just wonder if it is too much," Maher said.
"Here's the thing -- I am totally obsessed with the Christie story, unapologetically," Maddow said, "and will continue to be obsessed with it as amazing things in that story continue to happen." The Christie story, she argued, is just as crazy as former Illinois Governor Rod Blagojevich's corruption scandal.
Maher wasn't convinced the story deserved the kind of top billing it's been getting on MSNBC. "It's not Watergate. He's not the president. He's a New Jersey governor who did something bad ... but is it really that bad?"
"I'm sorry, when there are gonzo political corruption stories, you cover them," Maddow shot back, "and the most interesting thing about the Christie one is that it's still not resolved, we still don't really know what happened."
Maher wrote in a blog post earlier this month that, while he loves MSNBC, he might have to "break up with" the network because it's "obviously interested in another man."
Overall Maher hasn't been very impressed by the Christie scandal. “This is not the disaster for him that people think it is,” he said in a January appearance on MSNBC's "Hardball." "I think it's [like] Miley Cyrus. It looked like a scandal when she was twerking at the VMA awards, but it turned out that it just made her a bigger star."
Christie, for his part, has been on the offensive against MSNBC since its hosts began floating theories about his possible involvement in the decision to abruptly shut down two of the George Washington Bridge's access lanes in September, causing a crippling days-long traffic jam.
When MSNBC published a report in January alleging that Christie's office withheld Hurricane Sandy relief funds as a political bargaining chip, Christie spokesman Colin Reed said the network was out to get him. "MSNBC is a partisan network that has been openly hostile to Governor Christie and almost gleeful in their efforts attacking him, even taking the unprecedented step of producing and airing a nearly three-minute attack ad against him this week." Reed said in a statement at that time.
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