Burnt Orange Report

More on McGreevey

By Byron LaMasters

First, I'd like to state my agreement with Andrew's comments regarding Rick Perry below. Rick Perry is not gay (to my knowledge). And I stand by the posts that I made earlier in the Spring, because we were blogging on legitimate reports from people working in the legislature, people deeply connected in Austin politics and Republican and Democratic sources. They were all saying the same thing, and we felt an obligation, as an Austin-based Texas political blog to report on what we were hearing. I think that we handled the situation in a professional manner, but as far as I'm concerned, it's over. There was no evidence to suggest that the Perry rumors are true, yet there was plenty to suggest that the rumors were perpetuated by opponents of the governor within the Republican party. Perry blamed this blog and the Texas Democratic Party Chair, because we were easy targets - making this look like a Democratic attempt to smear the governor, when in fact the rumors came directly from the governors Republican political opponents. But regardless, I consider the issue to be over.

As for McGreevey - there's several aspects of the resignation speech to explore. Last night I focused on the gay aspect of the resignation. That post was my gut reaction after glossing over the aspects of the resignation. Obviously, the situation is more complicated. I think there are two issues here. First, the gay issue, and second, the issue over the misuse of public money, and power of appointments.

The most shameful aspect of this for me is that McGreevey's announcement yesterday could very easily be put into headlines like this:

"NJ governor is gay, resigns"

"Jersey Governor resigns, Is Gay"

Etc. Etc.

Which is exactly what you'll find under a search through Google News:

"NJ Governor out of closet, quits"
"New Jersey Governor Resigns over Gay Affair"
"US Governor steps down over gay affair"
"New Jersey Governor Quits over Same-Sex Affair"
"NJ governor had gay affair, says he'll quit"
"NJ governor resigns, citing affair with man"
"NJ Governor Quits Over Gay Affair"

This is a shame. Why? Because it sends a message to America, and to the world that being openly gay is inconsistent with public service. That's a terribly harmful message that has been sent to millions of Americans today. And that's what drove the thrust of my post last night.

Now, as for the real reason over the resignation, after researching the background here, it's hard to feel too much love for the guy. (I didn't look too much into the story last night - I was in Austin, at a friend's place writing the post, as I had just moved my stuff into my apartment - but did not yet have cable or Internet access. I'm back in Dallas now - working for another week before moving back to Austin for the semester).

Back to the real reason for this whole thing... Golan Cipel. I don't have much respect for this guy either, as he tried to extort and blackmail McGreevey in order to keep his mouth shut. But, the truth is that McGreevey paid him $110,000 / year for a job in which he was underqualified. That's hardly excusable, and it's hard to feel too much sympathy for McGreevey. The whole situation is shameful, and I'm still not entirely sure what to make of it all, but I think the best thing that I can do now is just wait for the facts to come out, and see what happens.