New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie is embroiled in the controversy over what appears to be political payback from his last gubernatorial campaign. Christie hasn't been tied to the scandal, but aides and appointees have been accused of closing lanes on the George Washington Bridge to punish the mayor of Fort Lee, who didn't endorse Christie. 
Christie fired Bridget Anne Kelly, who had been his deputy chief of staff, when her e-mail ordering the lane closings emerged. In his news conference on Thursday, Christie said he was "embarrassed and humiliated" by the "abject stupidity" of the move. 
David Wildstein, who apparently carried out Bridget Kelly's orders, is under investigation by a state Assembly committee looking into the scandal. The committee charged Wildstein with contempt for failing to answer its questions. Wildstein resigned from his top-level position with the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey in December. 
Mark Sokolich, the mayor of Fort Lee, called the lane closings a "venomous form of political retaliation." After a face-to-face meeting with Christie following his news conference, Sokolich said the governor was "gracious and apologetic" but said that "we're concerned there is more stuff and more issues to deal with." 
New Jersey Democratic Assemblyman John Wisniewski chairs the Transportation Committee that is investigating the scandal. Wisniewski says Christie "has a lot of explaining to do." 
Michael Drewniak, Christie's spokesman, told reporters early in the investigation: "The governor of the state of New Jersey does not involve himself in traffic studies," which is what David Wildstein had said the lane closings were for. 
Bill Baroni was executive deputy director of the Port Authority until he resigned amid the scandal in December. Christie said that Baroni accepted responsibility for not following the right protocols in approving the traffic study initially blamed by the administration for the lane closures. 
David Samson, Port Authority chairman, said the PA's board had no knowledge of the lane closings until they were lifted five days later. "I am extremely upset and distressed over today's disclosures," Samson, a Christie appointee, said in a statement after learning of the closings. 
Patrick Foye, the executive director of the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey, said the George Washington Bridge lane closures didn't follow protocols and ordered them reopened. 
Jersey City Mayor Steven Fulop, a Democrat who also didn't endorse Chris Christie, has raised his own suspicions about his cooled relationship with the administration and a suddenly tabled bill he was sponsoring in Trenton. 
New Jersey Senate Majority Leader Loretta Weinberg, a Democrat, has been pressing for information about the scandal and has introduced a measure in the Legislature asking Congress to restructure the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey, which operates bridges and tunnels, to ensure transparency. 
Democrat Barbara Buono is a New Jersey state Senator who challenged Chris Christie this past November. She derided him during the campaign as representing "the worst combination of bully and bossism" and brought up the lane closures as an example. She lost in a landslide. 
Bill Stepien is a sharp-elbowed strategist who managed Chris Christie's two gubernatorial campaigns. The notorious e-mails suggested he was aware of the Fort Lee bridge lane closures, and Christie has asked him to give up his political role. 
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- David Frum: Chris Christie's team broke rules to gain revenge against opponent
- He says question for governor is whether he can learn from this episode
- Running for president is a test of character, Frum says; can Christie overcome his flaws?
- Frum: Ex-President Nixon realized too late that hating his opponents was his undoing
Editor's note: David Frum, a CNN contributor, is a contributing editor at The Daily Beast. He is the author of eight books, including a new novel, "Patriots," and a post-election e-book, "Why Romney Lost." Frum was a special assistant to President George W. Bush from 2001 to 2002.
(CNN) -- "Obama did worse." "Christie's toast."
Those are the two main things media commentators, from the right and the left, said about New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie this week. Together, they expose the carelessness of the way we talk and think about the people who aspire to the presidency.
Start from this point: Many on Christie's staff are implicated in an abuse of power that inflicted harm upon tens of thousands of people.
Perhaps the governor didn't know that his staffers had gleefully ordered a traffic disruption on the George Washington Bridge last year. There is no evidence that he did know. On the other hand, these were the people the governor had chosen. This was the culture of the office he led.
The phrase "the buck stops here" -- used by the governor at his news conference last week -- doesn't just mean the boss makes the final decision. It means the boss accepts blame for things that go wrong, just as he gains credit from things that go right. It means that "I didn't know" is not an acceptable excuse.
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Christie's media moment But now proceed to this point: Almost everybody who seeks the presidency has demons to slay on his or her way to the office. The long road to the highest office in the land is a contest not only against political rivals but against the flaws of a candidate's own character and temperament.
We all have such flaws. In would-be presidents, they tend to be outsized and to carry outsized importance. What we are looking for in a president is not a person without such flaws but a person who has struggled with them and overcome them.
When a politician gets into trouble, as Christie has done, pundits suddenly decide that it's their job to mimic crisis managers. They offer advice on what the politician should say, what gestures he should offer, so as to escape blame and deflect criticism.
But what matters after an episode like the bridge story is not the show of contrition but the real lessons learned. Trouble now can even be a politician's friend, if it jolts him off a path leading to worse trouble later.
What Christie faces in the bridge uproar is not a communications challenge but a personal growth challenge. Can this combative politician recruit and run a team that understands better what is acceptable in political combat -- and what is not?
At his news conference after the damning bridge e-mails came to light, Christie repeatedly denounced the abuse of conduct as contrary to his personal standards. Can he enforce higher standards in the future?
David Frum
Christie has a style and sensibility that has brought him far as a politician. He's just received a sharp warning that this style and sensibility will take him no further. Conflict is intrinsic to politics -- but conflict governed by rules, written and unwritten.
Christie's team broke the rules to score revenge against a political opponent. Would a Christie White House govern the country in the same score-settling way? Even people inclined to support Christie are now wondering. His future will depend on convincing people that he's learned his lesson and changed his ways, and the best way to convince people that you have learned a lesson is actually to learn that lesson and actually to change your ways.
At the end of his own career, Richard Nixon delivered an eloquent self-assessment of his own failure as president: "Always remember others may hate you, but those who hate you don't win unless you hate them, and then you destroy yourself." Unlike Nixon, Christie can benefit from that wisdom at the beginning of a presidential career rather than at its tragic end.
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The opinions expressed in this commentary are solely those of David Frum.
