This is why Christie is popular in NJ. He’ll speak his mind and isn’t afraid to take flak for it.

Christie calls anti-Muslim conservatives “bigots”

The following video hasn’t gotten any attention in the mainstream press, but it has lit a fire on right-wing web sites.

The shaky, grainy 16-minute speech was shot by an attendee during an Iftar dinner - the evening meal during Ramadan - at the governor’s mansion two weeks ago.

“In many publications around this country I’m now called an Islamist,” Christie told the crowd of New Jersey Muslims. “Ya know, listen, I’ve been called worse things — usually on the boardwalk on Seaside Heights. Y’all saw my reaction to that.”

It is an extraordinary video, in part because you don’t often hear Republicans calling out elements of their own party for being “bigots” against Muslims. The issue of Islamic extremism is wrought with potential political pitfalls, and yet here is a guy on the short-list for GOP vice-presidential nominees who is directly confronting the topic in the backyard of his own house.

“I’ll tell you that there is a gaze of intolerance that is going around our country that is disturbing to me,” Christie said. “This is something that as a political leader you can think you understand as an objective observer, but you don’t really understand until you become part of the story.”