Jim Mcgreevey

HONESTY, we are told, is the best policy. It's a deceptively simple concept that appeals to our better selves, but challenges the baser parts of our nature. But sometimes, for a host of reasons, we lie. We do it out of fear, or hypocrisy, or to protect loved ones. We keep secrets, and train ourselves to believe that falsehoods are innocuous. We live our lives in defiance of the truth, regardless of the consequences. Most of us will never have to answer for our lies, at least not in the forum of public opinion.

AS I watched the resignation of New Jersey Gov. Jim McGreevey, I felt a sense of relief that I didn't have to wait 17 more months for the end of his term. He has been a disgrace from Day One with the multiple scandals in his administration and his ridiculous tax increases, not to mention the gay-marriage issue. If he truly cared about the citizens of New Jersey, he would have resigned at an appropriate time to allow us to choose our governor in a special election. I am one New Jersey resident who is appalled by the sexual harassment suit and all of the other scandals by this "brave" man. Jean Maltese Washington Township, N.J. Re "I'm a gay American": Um, Gov. McGreevey - who cares?

After days of political intrigue, U.S. Sen. Robert G. Torricelli yesterday declared his unabashed interest in running for governor, predicting with characteristic bravado that he would win by a landslide. "I believe it is a race that I would not only win but, more importantly, can win by such a margin to return Democratic control to the Assembly and the state Senate," Torricelli said in his first public comments since speculation about his candidacy arose. Torricelli, New Jersey's leading Democrat since he replaced Bill Bradley in the Senate four years ago, said he would enter the race if party leaders reached a "near consensus" that he was a better candidate than Jim McGreevey, the mayor of Woodbridge in Middlesex County.

IDREAMED about Jim McGreevey last night. It wasn't like the wake-up-with-a-start dream I had about dating Tobey Maguire - it was more that New Jersey's governor wove in and out of my head all night long. I hope it means McGreevey will not fade away forever, but will someday weave his way back into public life. It's a shame that just about the time I get used to having an openly gay governor, he will be gone from office. McGreevey was right when he said during his resignation speech last week that being gay should not affect the way he governs.

In his forthcoming memoir, former Gov. Jim McGreevey writes that his first sexual encounter with the man who would bring down his administration made him feel like he was "emerging from 44 years in a cave to taste pure air for the first time. " Excerpts of the book, The Confession, were published yesterday by the Associated Press. The book will hit bookstores Tuesday. The book describes McGreevey's rise in politics, his struggles with homosexuality, and his downfall at the hands of his lover, Golan Cipel, who McGreevey claims threatened to file a sexual-harassment lawsuit against him in an extortion plot.

What's an ex-governor to do? So lamented State Sen. Raymond Lesniak yesterday as his close friend, Jim McGreevey, completed his last day at the law firm where he has worked since resigning in November after a gay-sex scandal. McGreevey decided Wednesday to quit Parsippany-based Weiner Lesniak amid allegations that his work on behalf of the developers of the $1.3 billion Xanadu project at the Meadowlands sports complex represented a conflict of interest. As governor, he championed the massive North Jersey redevelopment project.

He's sick, courageous, disgraceful, pathetic and honest. Depending on who's talking, former New Jersey Gov. Jim McGreevey is all of that. His tell-all book, The Confession, and his recorded interview with Oprah Winfrey won't be out until Tuesday. But published book excerpts and interview leaks - with details of McGreevey's gay extramarital affair and double life as married father and closeted homosexual - are the buzz of the region. Yesterday, after reading salacious accounts in newspapers and hearing TV and radio reports, some residents and political leaders criticized the former governor for airing intimate matters embarrassing to his former wife and his family.

TRENTON - Former Gov. Jim McGreevey, who resigned in 2004 after declaring himself "a gay American" and admitting he had an extramarital affair with a male staffer, has had his pursuit of the Episcopal priesthood put on hold indefinitely. The New York Post reported Monday that the church had deferred his bid to join the clergy. The church wants McGreevey to put more distance between his possible ordination and the fairly recent turmoil in his life: his coming out in a nationally televised speech, his resignation, and a messy divorce from his wife, Dina Matos, in 2008, the newspaper said.

A new poll finds former New Jersey Gov. Jim McGreevey is less popular now than when he resigned in 2004 after acknowledging an extramarital affair with another man. The Fairleigh Dickinson-PublicMind Poll released yesterday, the fifth anniversary of McGreevey's public coming-out as "a gay American," finds 62 percent of Garden State voters have an unfavorable opinion of him now, compared with 53 percent who held an unfavorable view when he resigned....

Former Illinois Gov. Rod R. Blagojevich joined an exclusive club Thursday with his impeachment. Eight governors have been booted from office in U.S. history. Know who's not on the list? Former New Jersey Gov. Jim McGreevey, who at least had the good sense to recognize he no longer could effectively carry out his duties as the state's chief executive. Accused of sexual harassment, McGreevey resigned. "Blago," accused of trying to sell a U.S. Senate seat, should have followed suit.

KEARNY, N.J. - For anyone curious about what Jim McGreevey is up to seven years after coming out of the closet to become the first openly gay governor and resigning over an affair with a male staffer, his simple answer is this: "Having lunch at Hudson County Correctional Center. " But the story of McGreevey's nationally televised fall from grace on Aug. 12, 2004, and subsequent search for a more authentic life is much more nuanced than that. His journey finds him, on weekdays anyway, inside one of New Jersey's largest jails.

Edward Gross, 71, a former executive director of the New Jersey Turnpike Authority who oversaw the implementation of the state's E-ZPass toll-collection system, has died. Family members said Mr. Gross, who lived in Berkeley Township, died June 28 after suffering a massive heart attack. Mr. Gross was named the authority's acting executive director in October 1995 and was permanently appointed to the post by Gov. Christine Todd Whitman in February 1997. But he was forced out of the job in 2002 by Gov. Jim McGreevey amid allegations that the E-ZPass system project had been mishandled.

WE'VE BEEN hearing it since we were old enough to be held responsible for our behavior but weren't: "Boys will be boys," they say. Then they shake their heads slowly side to side. We heard it the first time we ate a bug or picked a scab or brought a lizard to the table. Someone said it when we dismantled the toaster or smeared mud on our church clothes. There is no equivalent phrase for girls. At the earliest age, girls are expected to be little ladies. But after 100,000 years of evolution, the male of the species still has not been socialized enough for people to expect us to have as much impulse control as women and domesticated animals.

It was no surprise to me that Chris Christie took heat for using a state helicopter to attend his son's baseball game, but I'm not thinking of the wrath of New Jersey taxpayers. If his house is anything like mine, he has bigger problems on the home front for the poor decision he made. Last Tuesday, Christie flew from Trenton to Montvale to watch his son Andrew play baseball in a state playoff game. Upon arrival next to the field, Christie was shuttled about 100 yards in a dark town car with tinted windows to the stands.

New Jersey is a small state, but it's uniquely packed with people, most of whom drive cars, and many of whom do so poorly and aggressively. Perhaps that's why almost no New Jersey governor - not even Gov. Christie, self-appointed guardian of fiscal and ethical purity - can resist a helicopter. Democrat or Republican, blue collar or blue blood, nearly all eventually succumb to the temptation to rise above turnpike traffic in a state police chopper. Christie Whitman criticized Jim Florio for doing it - and then did it herself.

TRENTON - Former New Jersey Gov. Jim McGreevey, who abruptly resigned in 2004 after declaring himself "a gay American" and admitting an extramarital affair with a male staffer, has seen his pursuit of the Episcopal priesthood put on hold indefinitely. The New York Post reported yesterday that the church has deferred his bid to join the clergy. The church wants McGreevey to wait so that he can put more distance between his possible ordination and the fairly recent turmoil in his life: his coming out in a nationally televised speech; his resignation, and his messy divorce from his wife, Dina Matos, in 2008.

TRENTON - Former Gov. Jim McGreevey, who resigned in 2004 after declaring himself "a gay American" and admitting he had an extramarital affair with a male staffer, has had his pursuit of the Episcopal priesthood put on hold indefinitely. The New York Post reported Monday that the church had deferred his bid to join the clergy. The church wants McGreevey to put more distance between his possible ordination and the fairly recent turmoil in his life: his coming out in a nationally televised speech, his resignation, and a messy divorce from his wife, Dina Matos, in 2008, the newspaper said.

WOODBRIDGE, N.J. - Personal and political worlds collided at Gov. Christie's town hall meeting Tuesday when a microphone was handed to former Gov. Jim McGreevey's father. Referring to a comment last week at a similar meeting in which a female supporter called Christie "hot and sexy," Jack McGreevey asked: "What was [your wife] Mary Pat's reaction when you were called 'hot and sexy?' " Then he flashed Christie a thumbs-up. Christie and the crowd of several hundred broke into laughter.

Bret Schundler is a man of impressive administrative and political credentials hired only this year to head the New Jersey Department of Education. None of that stopped Gov. Christie from firing him over a bureaucratic error a little more than a week ago. An upright, cerebral sort, Schundler drew the line when Christie accused him of lying, issuing a seven-page chronology - with appendixes - to refute the governor's story. Think this first bona fide disaster of his administration got Christie to change his firin' ways?

Gov. Christie's decision to appoint Anne Patterson to the New Jersey Supreme Court seat currently occupied by Justice John E. Wallace has generated a firestorm of criticism. Among other things, Christie's critics claim his decision is at war with established precedent and an inappropriate threat to the independence of the judiciary. In fact, the governor's decision is entirely consistent with the governmental structure established by the New Jersey Constitution. Any fair evaluation of Christie's decision must begin with the relevant constitutional language.