Chris Christie's not kidding when he says he'd like to spend more time with his family.

Obviously being governor is taking too much of his time.

That would be the only possible explanation for the bizarre remarks he made in Freehold Friday.

I expected him to apologize for his inexplicable decision to fly to Disney World Sunday morning as a blizzard was brewing.

Instead, he attacked the other elected officials who stayed and tried to do the job he should have been doing.

He praised the state's efforts in his absence and placed blame on some of the locals for screwing up.

What? The state screwed this pooch all the way to Pluto, as it were. State roads were impassable for days after the storm. One highway, Route 18, had to be closed because of the state's neglect.

Things barely improved even after the snow stopped falling Monday.

As late as Friday morning when I was driving south from Newark - almost four days after the snow stopped falling - key state highways at the Shore had lanes still blocked by snow.

And if you check the Asbury Park press article on the press conference, you'll see listed underneath a number of roads still not cleared. Some are state, some local, but in New Jersey the buck stops with the governor -- unless that governor's name Christie.

But how would Christie know that? He's been away in Florida.

He should have been in Jersey, driving the roads I've been driving since the blizzard began - right after he flew over the blizzard to get to the sunny south.

Most of the state was not hit all that hard. On Wednesday I drove through Senate president Steve Sweeney's home county of Gloucester and you could see grass sticking up through the snow in places.

But in Ocean and Monmouth counties, drifts of 4 and 5 feet were common - and still are. Major four-lane state highways were reduced to two lanes through Wednesday.

This guy is entirely out of touch with reality. Note this attack on local mayors:

They didn't do their job? Did our governor perhaps take some LSD during his trip to Disney, as the hippies used to do in the '60s? He must be hallucinating.

Many towns did an excellent job of cleaning their own streets. But what's the use of clearing side streets when the main arteries are impassable? Christie has to take responsibility for the fact that the state didn't do its job when he was at Disney World. Instead he blames the locals who stayed and tried to make up for the abject incompetence of his administration.

And as I've noted, the worst clean-up job was done in the very counties that gave the governor the most votes. Sweeney had no reason to help out all those Republicans. But is Christie seriously trying to convince us that even if he'd been here in Jersey he still would have shafted the very people who put him into office?

In that case, he is the single most clueless politician in America.

Even more bizarre was his reason for not returning to Jersey once the severity of the storm was obvious:

Now, this is absolute b.s. The severity of the storm was obvious before he got on the flight Sunday morning. By then the noreaster was already hitting us hard.

Note the photo below of my dog Betty on the beach that I took about 1 p.m. Sunday and posted shortly thereafter. Those are the conditions just a few hours after the governor flew to Florida. The storm was raging and there was not the tiniest fraction of a chance Jersey would be spared. If Christie looked out the plane window, he had to see a potential disaster unfolding below him.

By the way, I've noticed that just about everyone I've spoken with so far has assumed Christie left the state last week and was surprised by the storm. Not at all. He flew out Sunday morning right into the teeth of the storm. He wasn't literally on the last plane out, as if he were fleeing Saigon or something. But the airport was closed later that day.

Then there's this:

That has to be the single dumbest statement I've heard come out of the mouth of a Jersey politician in years. He had five great days with his kids? Is that the single most self-centered statement you've ever heard uttered by a politician?

Let me make two obvious points, governor:

1. We all would like to take our kids to Disney World. But if you wanted to spend more time with them you shouldn't have run for governor.

2. You made a promise to the people of New Jersey long before you made a promise to your kids.

A simple "I'm sorry, I screwed up. I won't do anything this stupid ever again." would have sufficed.

And then there was this:

As one hardened New Jersey pol said to me about Christie, "He needs to grow a pair." If he's more worried about keeping his wife happy than keeping the voters happy, then he's in the wrong job. And if this guy doesn't realize how big he screwed up, he might as well leave for good, take Guadagno with him, and let Sweeney run the state.

If the Shore is going to keep getting screwed by the governor, it would be nice to know we didn't vote for him.

ALSO: Just got back from a New year's Eve beer run up Route 35 into Monmouth County. There are still - five days after the storm - unplowed patches of the state highway where a five-foot wall of snow encroaches on the travel lane. Those driving in the right lane can find themselves suddenly forced into the left lane. When will the state finally finish the plowing job? After the snow melts, I guess.