Resignation of Jim McGreevey

There's got to be more to it than this:

In a stunning declaration, Gov. James E. McGreevey announced his resignation Thursday and acknowledged that he had an extramarital affair with another man. "My truth is that I am a gay American," he said.

"Shamefully, I engaged in adult consensual affairs with another man, which violates my bonds of matrimony," the married father of two said. "It was wrong, it was foolish, it was inexecusable."

The Democrat said his resignation would be effective Nov. 15.

McGreevey said he would step down because his secret - both his sexuality and his affair - leaves the governor's office vulnerable.

This is odd on a couple of levels: first, why is a governor of one of the most liberal states in the country resigning in this situation? Granted, NJ demographics are different from NY and Mass.: the Democrat leanings derive much more from ethnic immigrants, blacks and Puerto Ricans than those leanings derive from liberal left-wingers (like NY, Vermont and Mass.) -- although the grievance-class politics and ultra-liberal NJ Supreme Court result in NJ legally resembling the left-wing lunacy in Massachusetts. Given that blacks are known to be very religious and disapprove gay marriage by a much wider margin than the population at large, and that the blue-collar ethnics (think about every Sopranos stereotype -- I grew up around those same folks, only on the other side of the Hudson) are not necessarily gay-friendly either, that may be a reason that McGreevey's type of adultery is politically less acceptable than Bill Clinton's would be if he'd been governor. Nonetheless, the Democratic establishment in that state got McGreevey elected against a strong Republican challenger, so The Monk thinks that McGreevey had to have other skeletons in his armoire.

Second, why does McGreevey think his sexuality and the affair leave the governor's office vulnerable? Again, New Jersey is a Democratic stronghold and its Democratic party is notoriously corrupt throughout all the levels and branches of state government including the judiciary (remember the NJ Supreme Court's legal prestidigitation to enable Frank Lautenberg to violate the candidate registration laws and still end up on the Senatorial ballot in 2002?). This also indicates to The Monk that someone has something on McGreevey other than the governor's proclivities viz. the down low. (Jeff Jarvis was dead-on with his sourcing on McGreevey's reason to quit).

Third, why did he refer to himself as a "gay American" -- can't he just be an American who also happens to be gay, as opposed to a new category like all the hyphenated Americans: Italian-American, African-American, Asian-American, Liberal-Ted-Kennedy-worshipping-American, etc.? Yeah, that's a minor point, but McGreevey's phrasing annoyed The Monk.


Submitted to Beltway Traffic Jam.

See also A Small Victory regarding other rumors surrounding McGreevey.