SDG here. As details about the McGreevey scandal continue to emerge, it becomes abundantly obvious that much more is and has been at stake than one man’s family, administration, or notions of his sexual identity.
The emerging picture is one of significant institutional corruption in the Trenton Democratic machine — and astonishing complicity from the press, self-appointed guardians of the public’s “right to know,” which failed to press the questions, pursue the issues, make public what was, so we are now being told over and over, widely known.
In fact, it now seems “everybody” knew about McGreevey’s extramarital romantic interest — that is, everybody who is anybody, though not necessarily anybody who is nobody.
“Everybody” knew that the New Jersey Homeland Security Adviser was a non-U.S. citizen with no evident qualifications for his post other than McGreevey’s personal interest in him — an arrangement that has been likened to President Clinton putting Monica Lewinsky in charge of the CIA. “Everybody” knew, though of course I never heard.
While it is not yet clear whether “everybody” knew or knows if the relationship was “consensual,” as McGreevey claims, or if as Golan Cipel claims McGreevey used his authority to intimidate and harass him as a subordinate. (On the surface, Cipel’s claim seems problematic: After all, Cipel only got the job in the first place because of McGreevey’s interest. At least Monica Lewinsky was actually qualified to be an intern.)
I now read on Drudge that reporters questioned McGreevey on several occasions whether he was gay and whether he was having an affair with Golan Cipel — questions he dismissed as “ridiculous.” Apparently, the reporters let him get away with that dismissive answer. No reporting McGreevey’s denials, no reporting on the information that led them to ask the questions in the first place. No stories printed, no items broadcast.
Apparently, the possibility that New Jersey taxpayers were bankrolling the governor’s sexual identity experimentation — and that the security of the state was being looked after by a poet and former lieutenant in the Israeli Navy with no security experience — was not deemed worth reporting. Eventually Cipel’s lack of qualifications did become an issue — but only because the FBI cited his problematic status as the basis for their refusal to share information with him.
The American press may be biased, but it’s supposed to love a good scandal, and its distinct lack of interest in pursuing this one is disheartening, to say the least. (I heard one reporter in an interview comment that he along with other members of the press had been slow to tackle the story for fear of accusations of homophobia.) And of course the Democratic machine in Trenton had more than suspicions. They had to know.
So, once again, New Jersey, the home of the Sopranos and Frank Torricelli, makes headlines for its culture of corruption.
It would have been nice if someone in a position to let us know before now had done something about it.
Remember: First the media is biased, then they love a good scandal. There was no way the media could print a negative story about a gay, liberal, leftist Catholic, democrat. Think of all the sacred cows they would have had to skewer.