Mcgreevey Came Out; Now Time To Get Out
By Brian Yates (08/16/04)
Ever since the surprise resignation of New Jersey Governor James McGreevey, the consensus opinion among the elites of the mainstream press has been to laud his “courage” at coming out. Well McGreevey came out, now it’s time for him to get out. Not because he is a “gay American” as he said Thursday afternoon, but because he was willing to sacrifice the security of his state to keep his boyfriend close by.
McGreevey appointed Golan Cipel, now known to be the governor’s boyfriend, as the special counsel for homeland security who was to be paid an annual salary of $110,000. According to the governor, Cipel was qualified because he was a former officer in the Israeli Defense Forces and was “highly attuned to the issue because he was raised in a nation besieged by terrorism.” However, because Cipel was an Israeli citizen, he could not receive security clearance from the American military, and therefore not receive any briefings containing sensitive information.
What should be truly upsetting to citizens of New Jersey is that the outgoing New Jersey governor, Donald DiFrancesco, had persuaded former FBI director Louis Freeh to take the position as an unpaid director of homeland security. Mr. Freeh; however, wanted both the outgoing acting governor and the incoming McGreevey to sign off on his appointment, and that was the end of that plan.
The incoming McGreevey wanted his own man, an Israeli citizen whom he had met on a visit to the Middle East, to take the position, and he wanted to pay him $110,000 per year. Most people would agree, I believe, that Cipel was certainly qualified for the position. Not only had he been a member of the Israeli military and grown up in a hotbed of terrorism, but he had also been a poet, a public relations specialist, and a campaign aide to McGreevey. (The governor is not commenting on reports that his first choice for the position was Richard Simmons.)
So instead of having a former FBI director working for free to thwart the terrorist threat, New Jersey citizens generously paid a poet a six-figure salary so he could brief – or was it, debrief – the governor. Sounds like a great deal for the taxpayers of the Garden State.
New Jersey citizens weren’t completely screwed however. McGreevey, clearly concerned about the threat of terrorism, created another position, a post in the attorney general’s office to direct counterterrorism efforts. He appointed – and paid – a former assistant state attorney general to do that job. Due to McGreevey’s lust, the people of Jersey were forced to pay two people to do the same job. (Okay, two people to have the same official job description. Clearly the unspoken job duties were quite different.)
Another ironic note in all of this is that McGreevey originally ran for governor on the premise that the Republicans before him were only interested in providing patronage jobs for their friends and supporters. Then he got elected and appointed his poet mistress – or mister in this case – as security chief.
All of this has been lost in the rush to portray the governor as some sort of hero. “Today, Gov. McGreevey showed great courage, and I applaud him for showing all of us a great depth of character,” said Burlington County (NJ) Democratic Chairman Gary Karr. Great courage? Great depth of character? Coming out of the closet as being gay, or even a gay American, is certainly not easy. But to argue that McGreevey is any sort of hero, or try to make the case for his high character and great service to the state is ridiculous. He compromised the security of the state of New Jersey, and in a post-9/11 world that ought to be an impeachable offense.
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