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McGrievous When I was a kid, I confessed gleefully to lesser offenses than those I had actually committed. My 1976 confession to setting off firecrackers in my bedroom masked the detonation, two hours earlier, of an M-80—the equivalent of about an eighth of a stick of dynamite. The admission was greeted with just enough outrage from my folks to assuage my guilt but not nearly enough to serve up the juvey jail time I truly deserved. New Jersey governor Jim McGreevey, in recalling some of his bedroom exploits, has decided to recall himself. In a state full of exits, McGreevey is getting off. But Jim McGreevey’s firecrackers last week masked an M-80 that is set to blow any day. New Jersey’s particular form of meritocracy now includes how good you are between the sheets. These bedfellows are as strange as they get. And perhaps, together, they reached Golan Heights we political outsiders can only imagine. But Mr. Cipel is no more qualified to be state director of homeland security than Mary-Kate Olsen is to be a weight loss counselor. Hiring gofers and boy toys to secure the Port Authority is a PATH to destruction. Meanwhile, the cast of characters surrounding Jim McGreevey makes the crew from HBO’s Entourage look like Camelot. Top McGreevey fund-raiser Charles Kushner—currently under investigation by the FBI—allegedly hired a prostitute to entrap his own brother-in-law and scare him out of testifying before a grand jury. Kushner then sent a tape of the tryst to his own sister. Forget HBO. This pilot couldn’t cut it on Showtime. If Jim McGreevey ever makes it to Washington, it’ll be by Amtrak. Unlike his predecessors—from Woodrow Wilson to Christie Todd Whitman--McGreevey’s stint as New Jersey’s top executive will be a stepping stone back to Woodbridge. While former New Jersey governor Thomas Kean serves his country in the most lofty capacity imaginable, Jim McGreevey sets his beau up in a loft. While Kean painstakingly gathers intelligence on national security, McGreevey’s reaction to 9/11 is to pay a PR hound six figures to watch the skies and describe what he sees. What’s next--Lizzie Grubman heading up the Department of Motor Vehicles? Truth is, after co-opting the politics of an entire state, Jim McGreevey has co-opted the legitimate struggle of gay men and women across the land. We haven’t seen gay sexploitation like this since GW, 46 Republicans, and three Democrats tried to take our minds off the war and the economy with a bogus constitutional amendment. Of course, it’s not all about New Jersey. These days, American governors have the half-life of Madonna’s Kabbalah name. After Davis, Rowland, and now McGreevey, a real special election is one held on the first Tuesday in November in the last year of a full term. But when it comes to termus interruptus, New Jersey leads the pack the way it leads in Superfund sites. Since the Torricelli replacement election, there has hardly been enough time for the levers to cool off. Sure, just about as soon as Jim McGreevey stops hanging on like Burt Ward in an episode of Batman, there will be some sort of replacement. But the question is, how many times can you shuffle John Corzine and Frank Lautenberg to fill three vacated seats? Yet rather than shrink from this latest fiasco, this is a chance for New Jersey to shine. This is no Golden State. Literally dozens of favorite and not-so-favorite sons have already agreed not to toss their hat into the landfill. Bruce Springsteen is apparently too busy trying to unseat George W. Bush to be boss of his own state. That other Bruce—Willis, the one who really can’t sing-- has already agreed not to run, but right wing actors’ delusions of grandeur die hard. Jersey natives Bill Maher and Jon Stewart are not politically incorrect enough to be the butt of their own jokes. Meanwhile, Tony Soprano is holding out for more money. New Jersey and corruption—perfect together. In a state where so many people are on the take, something’s got to give. My friends call one of its fiefdoms “Ho-broken.” If you think it will be hard for Jim McGreevey and Golan Cipel to get a marriage license, try getting a construction permit in Ho-broken. This past winter, the buildings department top dog had an engineer I know come back five times over a period of five months to pull a simple permit for a three-story renovation. While the engineer was forced to submit isometric plumbing drawings that would make M.C. Escher envious, Hoboken cronies walked in and out by the dozens and pulled permits like Kleenex. The nickname for Jersey City is Jersey and an expletive that rhymes with city, gritty, and pity. In the early 80s, Jersey City gave a corrupt developer a permit to build a couple hundred three-unit residences on an old dumpsite without so much as compacting the municipal garbage below. Twenty years later, as a dedicated engineer and contractor work overtime to underpin buildings that have sunk as much as six to eight inches, building officials come around to shut down the job over a recessed light that suddenly requires a full drywall enclosure. Then there was the kitchen that had been there for twenty years that Jersey City retroactively declared illegal. You can’t blame these guys for getting a bit ornery when a couple of carpetbaggers fail repeatedly to leave little envelopes of C-notes and twenties on their clipboards. And you can understand why, after such callous disregard for the welfare of their local bar tab, they would issue a $100 fine for a small branch left on a neighboring property, send the summons to your previous address, and put out a warrant for your arrest when for some strange reason you don’t respond in seven days. The upshot is, the engineer and contractor decided to let the buildings sink into the ground and thereby keep pace with the Garden State. As for Jim McGreevey, coming out as a gay man was a nice gesture. Now it’s time to come out as a criminal. And it is also time we as a society recognize the natural inclination criminals feel from an early age toward graft and extortion. Typically, during childhood and early adolescence, the conflict between right and wrong is internalized, forcing criminals to live a life of outward honesty, decency, and generosity that is ultimately a betrayal of their true selves. We can only hope that one day, criminals will be free to practice intimidation, bribery, and blackmail out in the open instead of being made to lurk in the shadows. Only then can we claim to have a truly just society. Today, unfortunately, criminals are relegated to the margins of our civilization. Murderers, rapists, and con artists are told they are second class citizens not worthy of our love and respect. But given the kind of treatment one can expect from society, who in their right mind would choose to be a criminal? Forgive me for not McGrieving, but after many years of watching novice, vacant-minded boyfriends and girlfriends of powerbrokers leapfrogging over my genuinely qualified peers, the only thing I believe our nation owes the outgoing governor of New Jersey is a job pressing shirts at Rahway State Prison. But some will McGrieve nonetheless. Once in a while, I run into a weirdo who actually likes the way things typically work in this world. This is the way they work—in Trenton, DC, and the United Nations--and if you have a pressing policy matter for the government that cannot seem to garner the attention it merits, there may be a McGreevey and Cipel in your life. However, we are protected in one way. In the world of back-stabbing politics, cries of sexual harassment usually begin where nepotism ends. No one who ever turned on the faucet of kickbacks ever turned it off without the pipes kicking back. Click here to rant back. |