Friday, August 13, 2004
McGreevey: A Tragedy of Two Selves
I thought Gov. McGreevey's enemies had hacked Yahoo.
Peculiarities: The Governor is absolutely certain he is gay & not just a man who enjoys diversity. But he seems terribly naive for a middle-aged closet queer, like he isn't very experienced at the double-life. In fact, McGreevey has demonstrated a good deal of unexpected political naivete as Governor. Trip to Ireland at taxpayers' expense & trip to Puerto Rico courtesy of a labor union. Personal flights on the state copter. Firing the State Police Superintendent prematurely. He was far too trusting of the party insiders who backed him, & they let him down because they're in it for the money & he's in it mainly for other reasons. Then appointing Golan Cipal anti-terrotism chief. After a year in office, McGreevey seemed to have learned how to handle his job, but the earlier mistakes were dogging him. I think of Abe Lincoln down in Springfield ordering his convention managers up in Chicago to "make no deals," as if they were going obey him. This is a hear-no-evil, see-no-evil policy wonk guy. If McGreevey had remained mayor of Woodbridge, a job for which he was ideally suited, he wouldn't have had to get married; no one really cared about his personal life. They laughed at the rumors over coffee at the Reo Diner on Route 35. Gay? Gays were just as surprised as everyone else; if it can be known, they'll know it's more than a hint of mint before everyone else. The important truth was that Mayor McGreevey was a workaholic who lived like a monk in a condo on a treeless street. But his ambition was to be governor, the party establishment determined that he would have the job, so the pressure from within & without to keep running after 1997 was irresistable. Jim McGreevey must have sensed he was headed for a reckoning somewhere down the road if he rose too high & lied to himself too long.
The governor would not now want to imagine having lived a life without his two daughters. Yet the tragedy is that 30 years ago Jim McGreevey was forced to choose between two authentic selves: the sexual being & the young man with big dreams & political ambitions. If he was even fully aware of making such a choice. Choosing the former would have made the latter impossible. What he wanted for himself, for his private life, was a conventionally middle-class domesticity. How bitterly ironic that most gays only want the right to have the same for themselves.
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"If a nation expects to be ignorant and free, in a state of civilization, it expects what never was and never will be." Thomas Jefferson
Peculiarities: The Governor is absolutely certain he is gay & not just a man who enjoys diversity. But he seems terribly naive for a middle-aged closet queer, like he isn't very experienced at the double-life. In fact, McGreevey has demonstrated a good deal of unexpected political naivete as Governor. Trip to Ireland at taxpayers' expense & trip to Puerto Rico courtesy of a labor union. Personal flights on the state copter. Firing the State Police Superintendent prematurely. He was far too trusting of the party insiders who backed him, & they let him down because they're in it for the money & he's in it mainly for other reasons. Then appointing Golan Cipal anti-terrotism chief. After a year in office, McGreevey seemed to have learned how to handle his job, but the earlier mistakes were dogging him. I think of Abe Lincoln down in Springfield ordering his convention managers up in Chicago to "make no deals," as if they were going obey him. This is a hear-no-evil, see-no-evil policy wonk guy. If McGreevey had remained mayor of Woodbridge, a job for which he was ideally suited, he wouldn't have had to get married; no one really cared about his personal life. They laughed at the rumors over coffee at the Reo Diner on Route 35. Gay? Gays were just as surprised as everyone else; if it can be known, they'll know it's more than a hint of mint before everyone else. The important truth was that Mayor McGreevey was a workaholic who lived like a monk in a condo on a treeless street. But his ambition was to be governor, the party establishment determined that he would have the job, so the pressure from within & without to keep running after 1997 was irresistable. Jim McGreevey must have sensed he was headed for a reckoning somewhere down the road if he rose too high & lied to himself too long.
The governor would not now want to imagine having lived a life without his two daughters. Yet the tragedy is that 30 years ago Jim McGreevey was forced to choose between two authentic selves: the sexual being & the young man with big dreams & political ambitions. If he was even fully aware of making such a choice. Choosing the former would have made the latter impossible. What he wanted for himself, for his private life, was a conventionally middle-class domesticity. How bitterly ironic that most gays only want the right to have the same for themselves.
Add YOUR comments here
