My Soon-To-Be Ex-Governor

Just a few more thoughts re: McGreevey. There's been a lot of chatter in the last 24 hours on the left wing of the blogosphere about how McGreevey was forced out of office for being gay. Wrong! He is part of a long tradition of New Jersey politicians disgraced by corruption charges. But nor was he forced out entirely because of fundraising scandals. He resigned because of the combination of standard, un-sexy scandal and an imminent civil suit that should establish either that he is a sexual predator or else the victim of an extortion attempt.

Let's be clear on one thing: if McGreevey's affair had been with a woman, he might (repeat: might!) have been able to preserve his governorship. I'm not quite sure about this, but I seem to recall some politician who fairly recently weathered a storm of allegations and investigations involving fundraising scandals and sexual harrassment lawsuits. If anyone can tell me which politician I'm thinking of, I'd be grateful.

Now, McGreevey doesn't have the slickness that Clinton did, but on the other hand, New Jersey is a lot more Democratic than the nation as a whole, and it's at least conceivable that he could have survived through this if he'd been stupping a woman.

Btw, contrary to the CW that it shouldn't matter whether McGreevey's affair was heterosexual or homosexual, I actually think that his homosexuality is, if not an excuse, than at least an understandable reason for his infidelity. A heterosexual man who has an affair is deceiving his wife and family; a homosexual man married to a straight woman is deceiving himself as much as anyone else, and suffering deep psychic wounds as a result. On the most primal level, a man is still a man with needs, and no man can realistically be expected to totally abstain from sexual satisfaction [a lesson the Catholic church seems incapable of grasping, but that's another story--ed.].