Golan Cipel

by David P. Rebovich

Forty minutes into last Tuesday's OPRAH show, a polite but decidedly skeptical Ms. Winfrey asked former governor and current best-selling author, Jim McGreevey, why he wrote his book, THE CONFESSION (New York: Regan Books 2006). McGreevey, looking slim but fit and more handsome than I remember him, calmly explained that he sought forgiveness from the loved ones he hurt, wanted to perform an act of contrition, and hoped he could provided understanding of, and strength for, other gay people who had gone through tough times.

Having completed 174 of the 353 pages of what was proving to be a tedious read, I blurted to my television set, "What about the people of New Jersey who you screwed, and the Democrats who invested so much in you? Don't you have anything to say to them?" Oprah didn't ask McGreevey if and how his supposedly secret homosexual life affected his ability to climb up the political ladder and or any decisions he made as governor. Half-way through THE CONFESSION, I realized that the new author would probably not address these issues there either. Like New Jersey's press corps, political insiders, pundits, party operatives, political activists, political scientists, and politically engaged citizens, I had hoped that McGreevey's book would set the record straight, fill in some blanks, and provide some special insight into his career and brief tenure as governor. It doesn't do any of this.

Like everyone else who covered New Jersey politics or worked in or around the State House, I long ago heard that McGreevey was gay. He notes that Christie Whitman knew when he challenged her in the 1997 gubernatorial race. Surely there were some fascinating back stories about how he convinced political leaders that he could conceal his private life and whether anyone besides Golan Cipel had threatened him with exposure to try to get special treatment. As New Jersey's own Jon Stewart of THE DAILY SHOW said right after McGreevey announced his resignation, imagine what he must be hiding if his best option was to admit to his wife and parents that he is gay, repeat that admission on national television, and give up one of the most powerful governorships in the nation.

Well, if you decide to read McGreevey's book, you will learn that according to the former governor, the only thing he was hiding was a dissembled, inauthentic, and non-integrated personality. Oh, and a slew of gay sexual encounters, as well as some heterosexual ones, since age 14, including a relationship with Cipel that the former special counselor on anti-terrorism and homeland security still denies occurred. According to McGreevey, his biggest political mistake was creating that position for Cipel. One suspects that most New Jerseyans would add to that colossal error some other big ones, including more ill-advised patronage appointments, hikes in taxes, irresponsible borrowing schemes, fast-track development legislation, and raising expectations about changing the way Trenton does business and then elevating pay-to-play to an art form until he was almost out of office.

Except for some prophetic discussion of John Lynch's obsession with power and McGreevey's own willing surrender to the boss and pay-to-play systems, THE CONFESSION does not contain much about politics besides some predictable banter. McGreevey does claim that he wanted to accomplish big things in certain policy areas, like the environment, open space and education, and briefly discusses this near the end of the book. But he concedes that he did not accomplish much in office.

After watching the interview on OPRAH and plowing through the rest of book, it finally occurred to me that McGreevey did not write this volume for New Jersey citizens, fellow Democrats, politicians, or reporters, much less someone like me. Nor did he seem to write it to apologize to loved ones, despite his claim. While readers will be warmed by his high praise for his wonderful parents, his deep affection for his first wife, and his love for his two daughters, his relatives have to be embarrassed by the tales of his life-long promiscuity. Jim may have been closeted and lonely, but he certainly wasn't repressed!

As an act of contrition, the book also fails because, alas, the former governor neglects to offer a complete confession as he was taught by the good Catholic Sisters and Fathers who educated and helped mold him. On the next to the last page of the book, he admits, "I've still got to compile a list of those who I have harmed and make amends to them directly." Twenty pages earlier he offers a few sentences that shows awareness of the consequences of his actions on the broad public. He writes, "Besides the harm my dishonesty had done to me personally, I'd brought shame to my family and heartaches to my supporters throughout the state. I'd cast the government and my party into bedlam." Now that would have been a good way for a discredited ex-governor to begin his book.

Despite this admission, McGreevey can't quite let go of political competitiveness. He does a number on highly respected and feared U.S. Attorney for New Jersey, Christopher Christie, who he accuses of trying to nail him in the highly publicized D'Amiano affair. McGreevey characterizes Christie as a politically motivated Bush appointee. Call me crazy but going after corrupt, and potentially corrupt, politicians would seem to be a good and popular goal for a U.S. Attorney these days, regardless of whom appointed him. Indeed, it's easy to imagine people like McGreevey's own smart, principled parents, voting for Christie if he runs for state-wide office.

But neither settling political scores nor writing a complete, accurate history of his political career, are the major purpose of THE CONFESSION. McGreevey wrote this book for himself and to himself. Yes, he needs money for child support, alimony, and, one hopes, to help pay the mortgage on that big mansion in Plainfield that he shares with his wealthy life-partner. Surely the newly liberated McGreevey refuses to be bought and beholden anymore. But more than for money, the former governor wrote this book as a form of therapy, more specifically, as part of a therapeutic process in which he is slowly trying to piece his life together to find authenticity, integrity and happiness being the "gay American" he calls himself.

McGreevey tells readers that after leaving office he was close to having a breakdown and spent a month in a clinic. That stay was necessary and beneficial. But the former governor also notes in a few places in THE CONFESSION, including in his discussion of his stay at the clinic, that he has memory problems. He has trouble remembering certain actions and events, apparently because he has long been in the habit of repressing painful, embarrassing memories. His lengthy therapy seems to entail keeping some of those memories at bay while he works to piece himself back to a point where he can handle, emotionally and intellectually, his own past.

This is by no means an unusual therapeutic technique. However, while it may do McGreevey good, it does leave unfulfilled New Jerseyans who seek the truth about their former governor's political career, his administration, and how politics works in their state. As such, people who are inclined to buy this book may want to wait for its sequel, when a hopefully healthier McGreevey can write a complete confession that contributes to improving politics in the state in a way that the former governor never did when he was in office.

David P. Rebovich, Ph.D., is Managing Director of the Rider University Institute for New Jersey Politics (www.rider.edu/institute). He writes a regular column, "On Politics," for NEW JERSEY and monthly reports on New Jersey for CAMPAIGNS AND ELECTIONS Magazine. He also is a member of CQPolitics.com's Board of Advisors that provides commentary on national political developments.

The news that will have New Jersey's political community buzzing today is a report that James E. McGreevey told Oprah Winfrey that the first time he had sexual relations with Golan Cipel was while his wife was in the hospital having their daughter. Dina Matos McGreevey was hospitalized for several weeks prior to the birth of their daughter on December 7, 2001 -- less than a month after McGreevey was elected Governor. Just after taking office in January 2002, McGreevey named Cipel to serve as his Homeland Security Advisor.

By Steve Adubato, Ph.D.

I have no problem with former Governor Jim McGreevey raking in $500,000 for his book called "The Confession"due out in September. McGreevey is in a tough spot. It's very hard for a guy who left office the way he did to make a legitimate buck practicing law, running a non-profit or taking a corporate job. As for running for office again, that will never happen.

So, McGreevey enters the world of publishing and makes $500,000 promising to tell the whole truth and nothing but the truth�the good, the bad and the ugly; the embarrassing and the scandalous. But here's the catch. Last week, excerpts from McGreevey's book were released at something called "Book Expo America"in Washington, D.C. Those excerpts were excerpted in front page stories in a variety of newspapers.

Check this one out from the Star-Ledger on May 21; "How do you live with such shame? How do you accommodate your own disappointments, your own revulsions with who you have become?...Here's how: You spit in two." Or, "I knew I would have to lie for the rest of my life -- and I knew I was capable of it. The knowledge gave me a feeling of terrible power."

Then, McGreevey gets into the really juicy stuff, the kind of revelations that got him booked on Oprah in the fall right before the book comes out. "As the years went on, I became an avid womanizer as anybody else on the New Jersey political scene…But my attraction was largely artificial, my sexual performance a triumph of mind over matter." (You're kidding, right?)

Then more on sex and its connection to New Jersey politics; "The more the rumors circulated, the more public and brazen I became about my heterosexual conquests. I started checking out the strip clubs in Linden and Carteret with friends. It was amazing to me how often we ran into local political operatives in such places�because a great deal of New Jersey's backroom business is conducted by men while folding bills into the waistbands of women dancing in their laps." (That's funny. I've been to strip clubs, and I can't ever remember a meaningful piece of political or other business ever taking place.)

Later, McGreevey talks about chasing his political dream, but still having to hide his sexual orientation. He talks about anonymous sexual encounters; "When I made it my goal to rid myself of the desire, I was disavowing something else: my authentic self, my humanity. But desire doesn't go away under this kind of pressure. It mutates. In my case it went from the simply passions of a young adult-for physical and romantic love and happiness�to a particularly rank, unfulfilling variety of lust."

He goes on to talk about having sex with guys he didn't know or care about and wanting just to be held by another man. It is all very fascinating, except here is what the so-far released excerpts from McGreevey's book misses�The biggest reason Jim McGreevey was disgraced and was forced to resign had little if anything to do with him being gay. It was the fact that one of the guys that he was intimately involved with, Golan Cipel, was placed in an absurdly influential position when McGreevey was governor. Not only did McGreevey bring him from Israel where they met and place him in high paying, powerful positions within his office, he compounded matters by trying to appoint Cipel as the head of homeland security in the state AFTER September 11.

Can you imagine? As governor, McGreevey tried to put 8 million New Jersey lives at risk by putting his boyfriend (with absolutely no security, law enforcement or really any professional experience at all) in charge of the most sensitive and important position in the state after the worst terrorist attack in American history. It was insane. This was never about McGreevey being gay and having to fight his demons. It was about the fact that on so many levels he lacked a sense of integrity and honesty when it came to being an elected official with real power. It was about unbelievably bad judgment.

What McGreevey excerpts don't mention is that after he had to get rid of Cipel and distance himself, he did everything he could to get him high paying jobs in public relations and government consulting firms who did business directly with the state. Simply put, Jim McGreevey was compromising the governor's office so that he could make sure his lover (or ex-lover) was well taken care of and would hopefully keep his mouth shut. It is not about being gay. It would have been just as bad if Jim McGreevey were heterosexual and he tried to have his mistress head up homeland security and later hook her up in jobs with firms doing business with the state government that she clearly wasn't qualified for.

The bigger, more important story about Jim McGreevey was that one had a sense that he was willing to do or say absolutely anything in order to get and then hold on to political power. Him hiding his sexuality, getting married twice and having two daughters is bad enough. However, as a commentator, his private life shouldn't be my business or any one else's.

The problem is that what he did privately just simply mirrors the countless decisions Jim McGreevey made and the deals that he struck with all kinds of shady, unscrupulous, not to mention unethical characters from whom he took tens of thousands of dollars from in political contributions and then tried to do favors for them once in office. McGreevey cut deals with political bosses who had way too much influence on him. Those who understand how Trenton works knew that McGreevey had sold out to those he needed in order to get the governorship, which he became obsessed by. That is, until he could one day run for president. (No, seriously. That was his plan.)

The irony is that McGreevey being gay was never the issue. It was all of the other things he did that made him no longer tenable as the state's chief executive. If McGreevey's book is called "The Confession,"this apparently refers to the statement he made in the August 12, 2004 press conference when he announced; "I am a gay American." Fact is, most of us either involved in New Jersey government or covering it already knew that. Most of us didn't really care. That was McGreevey's private business, not ours.

But Jim McGreevey is no dummy. He knows that the way to sell books, get on Oprah and pay back the publisher who gave him a $500,000 advance is to talk about sex. It is to engage in sensationalism and hyperbole. It is to talk about his personal struggle of being Irish-Catholic and having to hide his sexual orientation. Simply put, on some level, McGreevey has mastered the art of making himself a sympathetic victim under the guise of being brutally honest about his past.

Again, I have no beef with Jim McGreevey taking whatever money he can to write this book. However, we should never confuse the sensationalism necessary to sell "The Confession"with the painful truths of how he used his power and influence as governor to do some amazingly unethical, embarrassing, and potentially criminal things. That's the book I'm waiting Jim McGreevey to write. Until he does, Oprah can have him, and trust me, she'll never ask him about any of that. Yet, the rest of us in New Jersey still have to live with the horrific mess Jim McGreevey left us.

PENNACCHIO SAYS DEMOCRATS HAVE SELECTIVE OUTRAGE ABOUT HOMELAND SECURITY ISSUES

DEMS WHO ARE OUTRAGED BY PORT SALE, WERE SILENT ON CIPEL AND HOMELAND SECURITY GRANT SCANDALS

Former James E. McGreevey spokesman Paul Aronsohn is quite clever. By delaying the official formation of an Aronsohn for Congress campaign committee until late December, he avoids having to disclose exactly how much money he has raised, and the identity of his donors, until April. On the record, Aronsohn cryptically claims to have raised between $120,000 and $130,000. He won't say how much he has spent (or on what) and he declines to reveal how much money he has on hand right now. Aronsohn's primary rival, '04 nominee Dorothea Anne Wolfe, dropped out of the race in late January -- largely because she didn't feel her own $86,000 warchest would be sufficient to wrestle the nomination from Aronsohn.

Before she dropped out of the race, Wolfe filed a complaint with the Federal Election Commission alleging that Aronsohn had spent more than the allowable $5,000 on his exploratory committee. Because Aronsohn has refused to release detailed campaign expenditures, a potential primary rival would have to wait until April -- after party organizations have selected their candidates -- to see if he spent more than the amount permitted. A Republican strategist told PoliticsNJ.com that it is unlikely that Aronsohn could have raised more than $100,000, set up a campaign website, hired consultants, and traveled numerous times to Washington for under $5,000.

While Aronsohn may be legally correct in his plan to spend a year "testing the waters" for a challenge to two-term Republican Congressman Scott Garrett, some pundits argue that the man who was the paid mouthpiece for the McGreevey administration -- it was Aronsohn who defended the hiring of Israeli poet Golan Cipel as the Governor's Homeland Security advisor -- lacks the luxury of playing cute with the facts. Aronsohn has argued that he was just following orders and that his defense of McGreevey and Cipel is not a reflection on him, although the claim that Aronsohn remains elusive with answers to reporter questions appears to be a valid complaint. One Trenton Democrat suggests that Aronsohn can help himself avoid references to his McGreevey media style by going out of his way to assure voters that he will not parse his words as a candidate for Congress.

There are two candidates for the Democratic nomination for Congress in the fifth district, where GOP Congressman Scott Garrett is seeking re-election to a third term: Dorothea Anne Wolfe, a former Bergen County Improvement Authority Chairwoman who won 41% against Garrett in 2004, and Paul Aronsohn, a Public Affairs executive at Pfizer who served as Press Secretary to Governor James E. McGreevey. The likelihood that the Republicans will seek to exploit Aronsohn's connection to McGreevey is exactly why some Bergen Democratic officials are second guessing his candidacy. Both parties have suggested that his defense of Israeli poet Golan Cipel as the state Homeland Security advisor (Cipel "brings a wealth of experience to the job," Aronsohn said) will come up during the campaign, and Democrats, with a priority of re-electing County Executive Dennis McNerney in a potentially tough race against former gubernatorial candidate Todd Caliguire, are concerned that Cipel and McGreevey could become a local issue. As a result of working for McGreevey, Aronsohn has a further challenge of repairing strained relationships with the Trenton press corps.

But Aronsohn's key attribute, besides a resume that includes working for the U.S. Delegation to the United Nations, is his fundraising ability. New Mexico Governor Bill Richardson, former United Nations Ambassador Richard Holbrooke, ex-White House Press Secretary Mike McCurry and CNN host/Democratic strategist Paul Begala have all been helping Aronsohn raise money.

Wolfe has filed a complaint against Aronsohn with the Federal Election Commission, alleging that he failed to file campaign finance reports even though he has spent more than $5,000 exploring a potential House bid. Aronsohn says he will file as a candidate next week and believes he has followed the letter of the law. But as one Democratic elected official said, "Jim McGreevey's spokesman doesn't have the ability to parse words...he needs to follow the spirit of every law, not just the letter of it."

NEWARK HOMELAND SECURITY SPENDING, ONCE AGAIN, UNDER THE MICROSCOPE
NEWARK USES HOMELAND SECURITY GRANTS FOR SUV'S