<p>Is this a quote or what? Turn it over and savor it for a minute: </p>
<p>“I’d taken a million ethical shortcuts to climb the ladder,all the time thinking that that was the only way to amass enough power to serve the collective good.” James McGreevey</p>
<p>"McGreevey, you will recall, was the corrupt governor of New Jersey who was forced to resign when it was revealed that he had appointed Golan Cipel, a poet, to run his states homeland security department in the hope that Cipel would become the governors male concubine. McGreevey came out of the closet only after Cipel threatened to sue him for sexual harassment. McGreevey still denies accusations that he plied Cipel with Jagermeister shots and assaulted him. He says it was a real love affair first consummated while McGreeveys wife was in the hospital recovering from her Caesarian section delivery of their daughter. Cipel says he and McGreevey never had sex.</p>
<p>Whatever the truth, its clear that McGreevey only came out because the wheels were coming off his political career. He tried to leap to safety by grabbing on to the guardrail of identity politics, declaring with focus-group clarity: My truth is that I am a gay American. That formulation my truth was exquisitely postmodern, implying that truth isnt something we can all lay claim to any more. It must be personalized, relativized. Its all about me.</p>
<p>By buying into this secular gospel, McGreevey appears to think that he can be cleansed of his sins. But real redemption requires admitting your mistakes, not merely the prurient details"</p>
<p><a href=“http://books.nationalreview.com/review/?q=ZDAxODhiNDI5NDJkYjFmMGMxZTY4NDBkNDU1MWY5YWM=[/url]”>http://books.nationalreview.com/review/?q=ZDAxODhiNDI5NDJkYjFmMGMxZTY4NDBkNDU1MWY5YWM=</a></p>
<p>FS - I like what you said about truth – very perceptive.</p>
<p>Leanid,</p>
<p>It gives me no satisfaction to say–I didn’t say it. </p>
<p>Jonah Goldberg did. Though, like you, I find it cuts to the heart of our political-moral discourse, i.e., the oxymoronic mis-statement “my truth”. There’s a lot of that in this world…and, of course, here on cc.</p>
<p>Though, in my defense, I must say that on this very day I have been accused of saying something else I didn’t say by one of our cc comrades (another thread–and it wasn’t a compliment:(). It seems of course an “irrational” thing to do, but there is no sense in getting all “hysterical” over it.;)</p>
<p>I guess this clears the balance. </p>
<p>Thanks, Leanid: The world is set aright.</p>
<p>Yesterday I caught part of Terry Gross’s interview of McGreevy on NPR’s Fresh Air:
<a href=“http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=6117393[/url]”>Former Gov. McGreevey Tells His Tale : NPR;
<p>If he is trying for sympathy or redemption or attempting a political comeback with the publication of his book he won’t succeed with me. What a pathetic case.</p>
<p>Oh, yeah, I see the quote marks now! </p>
<p>Well, FS, it just goes to show what an impressive mark you have left.</p>
<p>This truth business is just too tempting to let pass, so let me add – Where does that leave all the humanists among us if there is no “my truth”?</p>
<p>Actually we just had something similar happen with a long time hard core republican mayor of Spokane, WA. After years of being anti gay in public it came out that he was gay himself and soliciting very young men for government positions and dates.</p>
<p>Personally, it didn’t bother me that he was gay, but I did think he was sort of a pedofile as he was in his 50’s and the young men he sought comfort with were in the 15-17 age range. Sad and sick.</p>
<p>“Where does that leave all the humanists among us if there is no “my truth”?”</p>
<p>You may want to equate “humanist” with moral relativism, but many of us have firmly held beliefs of right and wrong that mirror those of the religionists of various sorts. We just don’t depend on an acceptance of the supernatural for the basis of those beliefs.</p>
<p>FountainSiren, why use 5-dollar words to describe his bad behavior when the 25-cent description will do? He ought to be ashamed of himself; his problems had little to do with his personal life. It was the unrestrained self-interest and ambition.</p>
<p>I didn’t care if he was gay. It’s the cheating on your wife and putting your lover in a postion for which he was clearly unqualified which I found unforgivable.</p>
<p>Like 2dsdad, I believe that ethics are universal, but don’t depend on belief in a deity.</p>
<p>As I remember, McGreevey is a good Catholic (although he now attends an Episcopal Church), and is a regular visitor (with his partner) to a Benedictine retreat center.</p>
<p>Well, Im from New Jersey, so I can tell you all, that, McGreevey sucked at being a Governor!</p>
<p>
LW,
reread your own words. In your world, what part of “self-interest” does not equal “personal life.” </p>
<p>The flesh-pressin’ Gov wanted to bag a young buck hottie from Israel named Golan Cipel. The Gov-aroused, wined and dined him with the offer of a career move from hack poet to head of Homeland Security in NJ (a state on the front lines of the terrorist threat, but that isn’t, I suppose, the aroused-Gov’s problem). </p>
<p>The hot-to-trot Gov, according to Cipel, got him all liquored-up to hook-up, between his sexual triumphs along the rest-stops on the New Jersey Turnpike–after having impregnated his young wife under the false pretense that he was romantically in love with her to death do us part yada yada. He left the office of the governor of New Jersey holding no more than his flaccid Johnson–with his much abused and fawning-with-child wife at his side–while telling those who elected him that his only sin was being gay (not a sin, but it’s his story, his “truth”). In so doing, dirtying the act of coming-out and, for the rest of us, telling the truth. </p>
<p>Maybe I’m naïve, never having had a sexual fling at a rest stop or been elected Governor, but it sounds somewhat “personal” to me.</p>
<p>
why strain your finances in an effort to be witty if this is the best you can afford; oh yeah, as I said, I didn’t write the damn chichi article with the multisyllabic words you deem to be beyond your intellectual spending limit. Jonathan Goldberg did. He gets paid to do it. Presumably, he can afford to pay cash for his words</p>
<p>–don’t be such a skinflint, ya cheapskate. </p>
<p>Sorry to be abrupt …I’m posting between parties and I’m in a rush…cheers.</p>
<p>Mini’s mantra: “what about christ?”</p>
<p>If I were his poor wife, his humiliation of me would be so enraging that I’d seriously think about pulling a Lorena Bobbet on him.;)</p>
<p>I heard part of an interview ont he radio as well. If I had not known he was th former governor of New Jersey I would have thought he was an inarticulate and very unsure of himself college student who couldn’t quite figure out what he wanted to say or why anyone would want to hear him. It was almost embarrassing to listen to him. Amazing that he was able to fool so many people for even a few years rearding his abilities and ambitions, sexual orientation aside.</p>
<p>From his book: “I pulled him to the bed and we made love like I’d always dreamed: a boa****l, passionate, whispering, masculine kind of love.” </p>
<p>I’m with FS. This is rather personal…</p>
<p>For a great deal of McGreevey’s political career, anyone living in northern NJ was well aware that he was gay. Common knowledge. His poor first wife fled to Canada with their young daughter to escape his dangerous lifestyle. So when he seeks sympathy over the stuggle he had accepting his sexuality I feel ill. He brought a daughter into the world so as to appear a neat little nuclear family. The turnpike rest stop flings and casual anonymous gay sex were too much for the first wife to bear. The daughter is no longer a handy photo-op prop, so he essentially forgets all about her.</p>
<p>Fast forward a few years: Has he examined his conscience, felt remorse for his lies and deceptions. Felt a tiny bit of guilt for not being involved in his daughter’s life? NO! He brings another child into a sham marriage created for political gain! He’s a snake. Wife #2, by the way, knew about the rest stop flings. She is an ambitious woman who overlooked it. It is the child who pays the price.</p>
<p>As far as McGreevey forcing himself on Golan…that is TOO funny! McGreevey is a pencil-neck geek. I could snap him over my knee like kindling. The idea of McGreevey strong-arming any man into non-consensual sex is just comical.</p>
<p>mattmom: Sadly, McGreevey is actually one of New Jersey’s brighter politicians.</p>
<p>Don’t know why the McGreevey quote got edited. The edited word is boa****l.</p>
<p>O.K. I’m confused. It’s really G rated! Boast ful.</p>
<p>Boa****l. Hummmm…curious, indeed…</p>
<p>SS, it’s the s.t.f.u. that gets filtered out, which is actually kind of amusing.</p>
<p>I think that it’s despicable that McGreevey is using the ‘gay’ card to excuse his bad behavior. As SS says, it’s been common knowledge in NJ for several years that he’s gay. Even his wife knew it! That really has nothing to do with his unethical behavior, and the self-promotion that has gone on since he left office. All this story shows is that men in powers of position can behave poorly regardless of their sexual orientation.</p>
<p>Cipel is just as bad, in my opinion, with his attempts to rewrite history, with his denials of any relationship.</p>