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Politics : Politics for Pros- moderated -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: DMaA who wrote (60321)	8/14/2004 9:02:51 AM
From: Tom Clarke	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 793928

You're right - that would have made him a hero. He'd have been the highest ranking gay official in the country. Lots of shoes still to drop in this story. New York Daily News - nydailynews.com Just another Jersey pol Friday, August 13th, 2004 With yesterday's spectacular act of political self-immolation, New Jersey Gov. Jim McGreevey became, at a single stroke, a national hero to the gay community and America's most sought-after candidate for psychotherapy. Unfortunately, McGreevey's personal drama is likely to serve as a smoke screen for what may well be the true motive for his resignation: the fact that a tidal wave of political sleaze swirling around the Garden State was about to swamp the governor's leaky, rickety boat. It's hard for many New Yorkers to grasp the depth of public malfeasance going on across the river. Over the last three years, federal prosecutors have pursued 55 major political corruption cases in New Jersey and indicted or convicted the mayors of Irvington, Paterson and Asbury Park, as well as former Essex County Executive James Treffinger. Earlier this year, the mayor and a top aide from Hainesport (pop. 4,100) went to prison for stealing $339,000 from the tiny town. A former Hudson County executive, Robert Janiszewski, pleaded guilty in 2002 to taking more than $100,000 in bribes from public contractors. Next month, Anthony Russo, a former mayor of Hoboken, is scheduled to face trial on bribery and extortion charges. In West New York, more than a dozen people, including the police chief, pleaded guilty or were recently convicted in a startling corruption scandal. The police chief, Alexander Oriente, testified that he took payoffs from mobsters and from Rene Abreu, a fund-raiser for a pol named Albio Sires, the former mayor of West New York. Abreu was convicted of mortgage fraud last week after a four-month trial on fraud and extortion charges. Former Mayor Sires is now speaker of the New Jersey state Assembly. Placed against this background, McGreevey's new pose as a gutsy, brutally honest politician seems absurd. He was named repeatedly last month in a 47-page federal indictment charging one of the governor's pals with extorting $40,000 in bribes and campaign contributions from a dairy farmer in Middlesex County, McGreevey's home turf. Charles Kushner, McGreevey's largest contributor, was indicted last month on federal charges of fund-raising violations, as well as conspiracy and obstruction. William Watley, McGreevey's commerce secretary, quit last month when it came to light that he steered state money to a company in which he had a stake. Two of McGreevey's top aides - his counsel, Paul Levinsohn, and his chief of staff, Gary Taffet - resigned last year under a cloud. McGreevey's undoing appears to have sprung from a sex-and-patronage deal gone bad: Apparently, a secret gay lover on the public payroll decided to sue and/or blackmail the governor. Sleazy business, to be sure - but hardly a reason to make a hero of a man who looks, from this side of the river, like one of the worst in a seemingly endless parade of ethically challenged New Jersey politicians. nydailynews.com