I TOLD YOU LAST YEAR THAT WE'D NEVER BE RID OF CHRIS CHRISTIE

Well, this was inevitable:

Former Gov. Chris Christie has landed a TV gig, NJ Advance Media has learned.

Christie has been hired as an occasional contributor to ABC News, according to sources familiar with the discussions....

Christie was chosen because he is close to the president and the players inside the White House, a source said. ABC News is gearing up coverage for the midterm elections in Washington, and value his perspective on Trump voters.

That's only part of the reason. He's also been hired because the New York-area chapter of the news media's boys' club still likes Christie's goombah style and assumes everyone else does. Also, like Newt Gingrich, Christie has mastered the art of being a right-wing asshole but an articulate-seeming one. The mainstream media loves that. The MSM also appreciates the fact that Christie, like Gingrich, expresses his disdain for the non-conservative press by trying to get exposure in it as often as humanly possible.

I told you last July that Christie would survive. Here's part of what I wrote at a moment that seemed like the last straw for New Jersey residents:

You may have concluded that Chris Christie, who was already America's most unpopular governor, is surely going to driven from public life after his most recent act of arrogance -- luxuriating on a state-run beach after allowing beaches and parks to be closed to the public for most of the Fourth of July weekend. But a Washington Post article by the usually reliable Robert Costa reminds us that the press is always willing to put in a kind word for Christie....

Start with Costa's headline:

Chris Christie flew close to the sun. Now, he sits under it, defiantly.

There it is -- the word "defiantly." You may think that Christie has humiliated himself with this beach appearance, but this suggests that he's standing tall and daring haters to hate.

Yes, Costa tells us that Christie's "prominent profile has all but drifted away following years of defeats and humiliations" -- but the undercurrent of admiration for Christie's bullheadedness is unmistakable:

Sporting floppy sandals and a baseball cap, Christie unapologetically lounged in the sun with his family at a state-owned beach house amid a statewide government shutdown that closed such beaches to the public. The scene — captured in airplane photographs snapped by the state’s largest newspaper, the Newark Star-Ledger — again revealed the indifferent defiance that has both lifted and hobbled Christie’s political career.

... the pictures of him among the dunes at Island Beach State Park were a reflection of who he has always been: a flawed brawler who relishes the limelight and who deliberately ignores decorum.

(Emphasis added, here and throughout.)

Even a list of Christie's most offensive acts is introduced with a reference to his "swagger."

Similar stories of his swagger are legion. Christie used to take a 55-foot-long State Police helicopter to his son’s baseball games. He was asked to give the keynote address at the 2012 Republican National Convention but uttered only a few words about the party’s standard-bearer, Mitt Romney. Christie’s taste for luxury travel has been funded by foreign leaders and a casino magnate. And his time in the owner’s box cheering on his beloved Dallas Cowboys sparked a flurry of ethics questions.

Yet Christie has not been humbled by his waning support or inclined to keep a lower profile as he serves out his final months. Instead, he has been as dismissive and as unflinching as ever.

... Once he's out of office, he'll still be a frequent Sunday talk show guest, assuming he doesn't sign an exclusive commentary deal with Fox (although these days obnoxious Republicans are just as likely to wind up on MSNBC).... In a few years, his appalling record as governor will be memory-holed by the press and his party. We'll be reading stories titled "Chris Christie: Survivor." We'll be expected to forget that we ever hated him.

I got the network wrong, but I got a lot right.