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The Jersey anti-defamation league

31 comments on The Jersey anti-defamation league

The Jersey anti-defamation league

: In the op-ed pages of The NY Times, Eric Denzenhall essentially accuses New Jersey of being homophobic:

Yet perhaps the most important variable sealing Mr. McGreevey’s fate was the setting for his drama. While New Jersey leans Democratic, these are not the Democrats of the Upper West Side or Malibu. These Democrats are still loyal to the “Three I’s” of Garden State politics – Ireland, Israel and Italy. These are the union boys, the tradesmen, the enlightened professionals who remember their parents cut stone in Newark and stirred great vats of soup at Campbell’s in Camden.

With the Three I’s, one can weather corruption charges, as Mr. McGreevey did until this week. In Jersey politics, rolling with the punches of graft has long been a shibboleth of manhood. Being gay, however, is not. It’s one thing for a governor to sell a political appointment. It’s another for him to have sex with the guy he appointed.

Crap. Look at the forum posts on NJ.com or the comments on this blog or listen to even the most neanderthal talk radio (i.e., NJ101.5) or listen to conversations around here and you will hear that people really do not object to McGreevey’s homosexuality. What they object to is the cardinal sin in this state, the sin of sins, the misstep that always kills governors here: Wasting taxpayer money. If all McGreevey had done was shtupped a guy named Golan Cipel, he would not have resigned. He resigned because this now explains why he put the guy on the state payroll at a high salary for a job he never should have filled. He wasted our money. Off with his head.

31 responses to “The Jersey anti-defamation league”

  1. Kozinski Avatar
    Kozinski

    It’s not just that McGreevy wasted taxpayers money, and that is bad enough. But appointing his boy toy as the Governor’s Homeland Security Advisor is unconsionable. And think of the context: Less than 6 months after 9/11, right in the middle of the anthax investigations, that were centered in New Jersey. If a politician is going to put their lover on the public payroll at least do in a position that doesn’t matter.

  2. Jim Elve Avatar
    Jim Elve

    I agree, Jeff.
    McGreevey seems to have successfully persuaded some that this is a gay issue with his statement, “My truth is that I am a gay American.” The truth is that he misled the NJ voters with his facade of a life, replete with wife & kids. He’s neither hero nor martyr for the gay community – just another oversexed politician who tried to cover up his pecadilloes at the expense of honesty. He’s worse than many since he used the public purse and possibily sacrificed public safety in his cover-up attempt.
    Sadly, important gay rights news is taking a back seat to this gossip/scandal story: the nullification of all those San Fran gay marriages. What happened to the admonition, “That which God has joined together, let no man put assunder”?

  3. Sterling Avatar
    Sterling

    Look, Golan Cipel is just the straw that broke the camel’s back. If McGreevey didn’t resign now, he’d have resigned in three months, or six. The corruption and the indictments have been piling up around the governor, and his own indictment would have come soon enough, possibly before Election Day. From the position of the Democrat leadership, losing the governorship would be bad enough – losing the majority on various county boards of freeholders and municipal councils would have cost the Democrats jobs and contracts. That’s what this is about – McGreevey trying to escape prosecution and save his career, and the NJ Democrats cutting their losses well in advance of Election Day.

  4. Fausta Avatar
    Fausta

    The gay issue is the red herring in the crime novel of the McGreevey administration.
    I’m writing to McGreevey now insisting that he resign so we can choose our next governor this year.

  5. onecent Avatar
    onecent

    How New York Timesish! The neaderthal New Jersey Irish and Italians of blue collar origin can’t process the McGreevey admission with the correct sensitivity. The Upper West Side are better enlightened to view this pig at the public trough in a context with more enlightened sensitivity to his rather bogus personal ordeal. I guess the oracle of class snobbery has spoken.
    Hey, Denzenhall, I’ll take a working class bar any day. Tony and Pat with a beer are smarter journalists.

  6. tcs Avatar
    tcs

    Hey Jeff, I caught your Q&A session on C-SPAN last night, and that’s how I found your site. Good job – I think you and Daniel did an excellent job summing up the feelings of the majority of people in the blogosphere.
    Anyways, onto my comment. While McGreevey’s constituents are more concerned about pragmatic issues such as his making bad appointments and wasting taxpayer money, now that this has come into the national spotlight, the fact that he was gay is really the issue that’s going to stand out, more than anything else.
    My friend Mike Slaven wrote an interesting piece on McGreevey’s resignation; he has a different point of view, and you might find it interesting: http://newsthoughts.net/wp/2004/08/13/mcgreevey-comes-out-and-goes-out/

  7. DCRob Avatar
    DCRob

    From a lengthy article in tomorrow’s New York Times:
    “‘The political people all said that the public might accept that he was gay and overlook the fact that he had an affair,’ said one person involved the debate. ‘But having a lover on the payroll, in a job where they weren’t really qualified, whatever their sexual preference, would be devastating.’ Mr. McGreevey soon began preparing a speech to make to the public about his life and current circumstances. In doing so, he began conferring with directors at the Human Rights Campaign, a gay advocacy group. The most dramatic line the governor eventually uttered

  8. Steve Avatar
    Steve

    Did McGreevey really mislead New Jersey voters by marrying and having children? I haven’t seen anything saying that he was involved with anyone male prior to the mid-life boy toy who is now suing him.
    And yes, the problem was putting the boy toy in a critical public position he wasn’t qualified for. The NY Times will never say that, since it’s too busy trying to manipulate gays for its own political purposes.

  9. Sterling Avatar
    Sterling

    Steve – During McGreevey’s first gubernatorial run in 1997 there were rumors that identified a boyfriend. I took them with a grain of salt – it wasn’t until 2001 that the rumors really started to come fast and furious, and it was at that point that a lot of people concluded he was actually, truly gay.
    So I don’t think this is new. For the details we’ll just have to wait for the inevitable ghost-written autobiography, in which McGreevey will try to reinvent himself before again seeking public office. Summer 2006, probably.

  10. Mike M Avatar
    Mike M

    Steve,
    You just need to look a little harder.
    Look into his Woodbridge days as mayor (where the rumor was he was caught having sex with another man at a nightclub by a cop).
    Or see why his first wife mysteriously went back to Canada with their child.
    Listen to the story we love here in Cape May about the broken leg, where the missus came charging down to the rescue to cover for him.
    It’s been going on for a long, long time.
    Unfortunately, McGreevey felt that since nobody was willing to out him, maybe we would all just look the other way too, while he ran the most corrupt, dishonest administration in NJ’s sordid political history.
    It is a real shame that Bret Schundler hadn’t been elected instead. He recognized that “(f)requently the problem in Trenton is the special interests,”. He would have made a big difference in this state, but of course McGreevey promised that he was “willing to stand up to the special interests and work for New Jersey’s working families” and the democrat voters fell for it once again, hook, line, and sinker.

  11. Sterling Avatar
    Sterling

    Schundler was fragged by the state GOP – they despise him. He got to be mayor of Jersey City without the support of the party hierarchy – there was effectively no Hudson County GOP pre- or post-Schundler – and then from their perspective he cut in line to get the gubernatorial nomination.
    I’m not saying Schundler is Mother Theresa or anything, but everyone knows he is not corrupt. His incorruptibilty is exactly what infuriates established politicians in Jersey – he won’t play ball with them. Schundler is the man Jersey needs right now, but he is very nearly the last man the NJ GOP would ever allow on the ballot.
    When you hear the NJ GOP complaining about Torricelli and McGreevey and the Democrats’ crazy stunts to keep the electorate from having its say, remember that the NJ GOP tried something very similar to keep Schundler off the ballot in 2001. When party-anointed nominee DiFrancesco went down the tubes due to his own corruption, the NJ GOP fiddled with election law and changed the primary date so they could replace him with Bob Franks rather than accept the primary challenger, Bret Schundler. Schundler won anyway, and then they spent the next four months undermining his campaign.
    Before the Democrats circumvented deadlines with Torricelli and Lautenberg, the GOP did it with Franks to thwart Schundler.

  12. lucinda Avatar
    lucinda

    Maybe was I was too harsh at the onset of this story. As I grabbed today’s newspapers from my book shop, I glanced at the NY Post with its portrait of Mr. McGreevey and Mr. Ciple in their tuxes at a fundraiser in 2001. They were some very handsome together, their hands glasped together. If only this had been their wedding portrait.
    The Catholic son of a former Marine drill sergeant, without being able to marry, he couldn’t bring the man he loved into this country legally. Clearly, putting Mr. Cipel on the state’s payroll in a critical post was not appropriate but what’s a man to do?

  13. Matthew Goggins Avatar
    Matthew Goggins

    Gov. McGreevey didn’t resign because he was homosexual, he didn’t resign because he was wasting tax money.
    He resigned because he appointed someone with very light credentials to manage homeland security in New Jersey. He tenaciously stuck to his choice in the face of a storm of criticism, and now we know why: his appointee was either his friend or his lover; it was selfish favoritism trumping the public good.
    Just think about how egregious this is. If an Islamist terrorist gets a nuclear bomb, how is he going to get it into the U.S.? How about on a container ship docking into Port Elizabeth, New Jersey? Gov. McGreevey was fooling around with homeland security in the most sensitive target area of the country during the most critical time of the War on Terror. Resignation is too good for him — he should go to jail — he should really go to jail!

  14. Evan McElravy Avatar
    Evan McElravy

    What a bunch of bullshit…my state of PA, for example, is as much graft central as NJ and I’m sure there are plenty of big-titted blondes in the state gov’t whose only qualification is having given it up to Big Ed — same as in most any state — but none of these hetero flesh hounds are ever going to be made to resign over it. Extra-serious because its a “Homeland Security” office? I’m sorry, but that’s just hysterical madness.

  15. Mark L Avatar
    Mark L

    While I agree that the gay angle is just a red herring, Neither corruption nor sex is why McGreevey resigned. If it had just been that, he would still be there, for Jarvis to vote for in the next election. And Jarvis probably would . . . again.
    Corruption in the State House? Since when was that even slightly unusual in New Jersey. Especially with a Democrat as Governor. The level of corruption when the Dems are in power would make even the Sopranos blush. (The only reason it is better when Republicans are in the Governor’s Mansion is that the press won’t give them a pass on corruption the way they do with Democrats.
    Playing sex games with an employee? Aw c’mon. If it was just about sex, it doesn’t matter, right? At least that was Jarvis’s position about Clinton. Sex does not if you are Democrat. It’s only Republicans that resign or go to jail for that.
    The fact that the job involved security? That is to laugh. It did not matter with Monica. She got shifted into a job in the Defense Department — because of her oral communications skills, mainly. That did not matter. It was just about sex. So was this.
    That was before 9-11 and this is after 9-11? Well, maybe. But according to the Democrat’s candidate for President, 9-11 was not a big deal. It changed NOTHING. Democrats are proposing a reactive approach to terror, playing defense and treating individual acts of terror as simple criminal acts that can be handled by a couple of state cops in their spare time.
    McGreevey, by those lights, did nothing especially wrong. I mean, the whole War on Terror is a joke to a large segment of that party. They think that it is just a way for Bush to score political points, not a serious exercise. No, McGreevey saw what to him and a large part of the Democrat’s establishment was a nice juicy — but unimportant — piece of pork that he could deal out to his boy toy. No biggie.
    McGreevey’s real crime was simply playing the game by the rules that the Democrats have set up, but doing it in a way that the general public could see what those rules were. McGreevey did not have to go because he wasted taxpayer money or even because he compromised New Jersey’s internal security.
    He had to go because if he stayed he would serve as a reminder — IN NOVEMBER — of how unserious Democrats are on the War on Terror. He would remind voters that he thought it was so unimportant that he could give the main job fighting terrorism to a boy toy. He would remind voters that Kerry and Edwards have the same cavalier approach to national security. That could cost them votes. That might even cost them the election, and we cannot have that, now.
    No, McGreevey had to walk the plank so that in the future Democrats can continue to play games with national security, and continue to pretend that the money spent there is just anouther useful source for buying votes.
    But that won’t change anything for folks like Jarvis who are going to drink the Kool-Aid and vote Kerry-Edwards in November. They are unwilling to see McGreevey for what he is: a cautionary tale about the Democrat’s attitude towards the war on terror.
    So spare me the indignation. You guys *earned* McGreevey. You *knew* what he was when you elected him. You voted for him anyway. You know what Kerry is. You will vote for him anyway.
    What is it they say about those unwilling to learn from history? Don’t bother asking a Democrat or a liberal. They don’t have a clue.

  16. DCRob Avatar
    DCRob

    I think the Governor deserves to have something named after him. How does the James E. McGreevey Museum of Science and Trucking sound?

  17. alan kral Avatar
    alan kral

    Who cares about $110k when the guy raised taxes $5 bil, who cares about boyfriend, everyone says everyone knew about the relationship and still the vastly unqualified Cipal was allowed to be head of Homeland Security for the state that lost the second largest number of victims 9/11. McGreevey, and really his party, showing how much they care for the safety of New Jersey citizens. And people want to trust a Democrat with the nation’s security?

  18. Lauren Allen Avatar
    Lauren Allen

    Jim Elve asked above: “Sadly, important gay rights news is taking a back seat to this gossip/scandal story: the nullification of all those San Fran gay marriages. What happened to the admonition, “That which God has joined together, let no man put assunder”?”
    Last I checked, San Francisco was a city, not a deity. I’m just sayin’.

  19. exguru Avatar
    exguru

    The first comment here, by Kozinski, is excellent. Everyone in the world seems to think the six-figure job was a sinecure, regardless who filled it. Nobody thinks to remark that New Jersey might need somebody in charge of defense, or that there was valid justification for setting up that job slot in the first place.

  20. Jack Avatar
    Jack

    For four years we have been hearing the left bleat about “disenfranchisement” in the fight over Florida’s presidential electors. Now McGreevey has effectively disenfranchised New Jersey’s voters by consigning them to a caretaker, and therefore impotent, governor, which fact he could remedy by resigning now, instead of on November 15. Where are all the people who condemned disenfranchisement in 2000? Is there something magical about Florida voters, or do you think their complaints then, and lack of complaints now, were results-oriented? I blogged my irritation here: http://tigerhawk.blogspot.com/2004/08/disenfranchisement-of-new-jersey.html

  21. Sterling Avatar
    Sterling

    Golan’s payoff proposal had a Torricelli connection:
    http://www.newsday.com/news/local/wire/ny-bc-nj–governorresigns0814aug14,0,4995973.story?coll=ny-ap-regional-wire
    Curiouser and curiouser.

  22. Matthew Goggins Avatar
    Matthew Goggins

    Evan, Mark:
    Homeland security is not a joke. It’s not a game.
    What Gov. McGreevey did was a criminal dereliction of duty. If one person were to die due to his malfeasance, that would be horrible. But thousands of lives were put in jeopardy by McGreevey’s fecklessness.

  23. Mark L Avatar
    Mark L

    Matthew:
    Well, duh. Homeland security is not a game. That was my point. But it *is* a game to the Democrats — or at least the ones that count. The Liebermans and Millers of the party have been isolated.
    McGreevey’s sin was not corruption. It was not infidelity. It was not homosexuality. It was underscoring that the Democrats believe that Homeland Security is a game and that the War on Terror is just a clever ploy on the part of President Bush to get votes. That is what the soul of the Democrat Party believes. Read Kerry’s statements about fighting a “more sensitive war” and Edwards’s idiotic defense of those statements.
    But McGreevey was not turfed out because he believed that the whole thing was a joke and treated Homeland Security as a joke. He was turfed out because he would remind voters that that belief dominates the Democrats. It is fine by Democrats to treat HS as pork — remember the vote to unionize homeland security workers, back in 2002? But they don’t want the public at large realizing that they believe this because it will cost them votes. So McGreevey is guilty of the only capital crime for Democrats — not endangering national security, but rather endangering Democrats’ chance at winning public office.
    That is what it boils down to. Corruption? No prob. Sex scandal? Who cares. Compromising security? Big deal. Costing us votes? Off with his head!
    It is not going to get better as long as useful fools that should know better continue to act as facilitators by voting for Democrats that believe homeland security and the War on Terror is a joke. That is what Messures Kerry and Edwards are doing every time they speak on the subject. And all war liberals can do is wonder when those two will start mouthing the right catch phrases. Even if they do not, it does not matter. Kerry and Edwards are the Democrats — just as McGreevey was the Democrat — so despite what all the evidence tells you about them you pull the D lever regardless.
    You guys *knew* what McGreevey was when you elected him governor. And now you are shocked! shocked! to find out that he is a crook.
    Give your indignation a rest. It is a crock.

  24. Matthew Goggins Avatar
    Matthew Goggins

    Mark,
    You were right, I was wrong, about your point. I misread your other post.
    However, indignation is not a crock. It is true that some voters should be indignant with themselves for tolerating a situation that allows someone like McGreevey to be governor. But they should also be very indignant with McGreevey as well.

  25. J_Crater Avatar
    J_Crater

    A governor to comes out of the closet and what does he do next ?
    He resigns. I can’t think of a name or title to give him other than .. homophobe.

  26. Al Maviva Avatar
    Al Maviva

    I stand by what I said in the earlier post.
    It was those damn panty sniffing Republican gay bashing homophobes that drove poor Mr. McGreevey from office.
    The NY Times has gotten halfway there. The story from the Newspaper of Record is that the queer-baiting ethnic Democrats of New Jersey drove him from office.
    The next article the Times runs will mention that the same union Democrats – the Pats and Tonys and Isaacs – made up the Reagan majority during the 80’s and for all intents and purposes, are Republicans.
    Ergo, the goddam Republicans drove McGreevey from office.
    Mark my words, that’s the next story. The foundation was laid with today’s story, tomorrow’s or Monday’s or the next Times Magazine issue to go to press (two weeks?) will make this connection and the bridge will be crossed.
    Do I believe the Republicans did it? Hell no. Not a snowball’s chance. New Jersey’s Republican machine is a creaky 47 DeSoto that’s been up on blocks rotting in a field for ten years. It’s not capable of driving a car to the office, much less a governor out of one.
    But once it goes into the NY Times as “Gay Bashing Republican Fundies Drive Poor McGreevey Out of Office” – that will be the official story, just like Max Clelland and John Kerry are now the biggest war heroes this side of Audie Murphy. We will be lucky if the multi-dimensionally corrupt McGreevey doesn’t wind up Secretary of Health and Human Services in the Kerry Administration…

  27. Kat Avatar
    Kat

    tcs–so would your friend, Mike Slaven, attribute Bill Clinton’s indiscretions to his heterosexuality??
    Your friend says{Any way you cut it, the lies, the affair, the harassment

  28. Like Drops Of Water Avatar
    Like Drops Of Water

    Jeff hit it but not hard enough: “He wasted our money. Off with his head.”
    Yes, but…
    He put us in danger. Off with his head. With a breadknife.
    I fear that Mark L nailed it: McGreevey’s sin could be merely the symptom of a larger problem.

  29. Miles Avatar
    Miles

    McGreevey violated the public trust and put the safety of everyone on the Eastern sea board lives at risk (not an exageration after 9/11). He should be locked away in shackles in a place where he can get all of the ass-play he’s ever desired.

  30. Dash Avatar
    Dash

    I can’t believe McGreevey’s getting away with playing the gay card… and the New York Times is helping him do it. Unbelieveable.
    I bet he’s not even gay, he’s just saying he is to get out of trouble.

  31. Mark L Avatar
    Mark L

    Matthew:
    The indignation *is* a crock if:
    a. You knew (or strongly suspected) that McGreevey was a crook that would sell his grandmother’s virtue for money or votes, and that he was unlikely to demand a high price, just what he could get. Surely most of NJ realized that. His nickname is McGreedy for pity’s sake.
    b. You voted for him anyway, knowing how ethically challenged he was, because . . . well, he was not a Republican.
    If that description does not fit you, feel free to be indignant about McGreevey. That description fits more than one person who is now declaring “off with his head.” To them I say, spare me the indignation. You *knew* what he was when you voted for him. Even — and especially — if those folks are mad because McGreevey sold them out on Homeland Security. You *knew* Democrats were unserious about that issue when you pulled the lever. You know they are unserious about it today — especially Kerry and Edwards. And you are going to *do**it* AGAIN come this November.
    They do not learn. They do not *want* to learn. Which means, in the final analysis, that they do not really care, despite what they say about being hawks, and deserve what they get — whether it is a McGreevey or a Kerry. So, those folks — spare me.
    And, if Kerry is elected, when we get something that makes 9/11 look like the first attempt on the WTC by comparison — because Kerry *will* be unserious on terrorism — spare me the indignation then, too. This country will have earned that hurt.