Gay Ex-Governor's Party Affiliation, Hiring Scandal Ignored in AP Story

March 14th, 2007 10:50 AM

In a stunning news conference in August 2004, then-Governor Jim McGreevey (D-NJ) acknowledged that he was "a gay American" and announced he was stepping down as chief executive of the Garden State. At the time McGreevey had some dark clouds hanging over his governorship, but the gay subplot distracted media attention from his ethically-plagued tenure.

Standing by his side throughout the press conference was the wife and mother of his child, Dina Matos.

Now McGreevey wants his wife to pony up child support. You just can't pass up a story like that, so the Associated Press filed a story.

Yet curiously, McGreevey's party affiliation went unmentioned. Also left out of the article, McGreevey's sexual advances on aide Golan Cipel, an Israeli citizen, was hardly scratching the surface of the scandal. Rather than a simple case of sexual harassment at the very least, Cipel's hire for a key homeland security post was inadvisable from the start. Cipel, it turns out, was granted the security-sensitive post without the proper scrutiny. Indeed, Cipel, an Israel citizen, didn't even have an FBI clearance.