May the wind be at your back

Florida’s pain might be Bush’s gain.  It’s a golden opportunity for him to get free face time down in Florida, to dole out some cash to those stricken by Hurricane Charley and score some votes in the process.  The crisis leaves Kerry on the sidelines: How can he knock on voters’ doors when those doors are a couple hundred yards away from the house?  Kerry had been leading by a slight margin in the Florida tracking polls prior to Chuck blowing a sizeable number of retired Americans from the Gulf Coast to the Atlantic.  I’m gonna watch the Sunshine State closely over the next few months.  Florida will be decisive in the 2004 race: As we’ve seen in the past, it’s the Electoral College that matters, not the popular vote.  With that little elephant lingering in the corner of the room—you know, that whole nastiness in 2000—it should turn nasty as soon as the dust settles from Charley.

Incidentally, Bush spent only a few hours touring the destruction in Florida.  I, for one, am glad he was there personally, because I can't imagine that the state could have gotten by without the hands-on leadership he's famous for.

Avid Weather Channel fan George W. Bush heads out on the campaign trail.

MSNBC: In an election year, hurricanes, too, are political

It figures it’d be the “Garden State”

Jersey politics: It’s the best reality show on television today.  Maybe they’ll install some hidden cameras when Corzine takes office.  When I first heard about Governor James McGreevey’s resignation, I was predictably a little peeved: Why does the fact that he’s a gay American affect his ability to lead the state of New Jersey?  If he got up and revealed that he was raised by wolves in the Meadowlands and could only read at a third-grade level, I’d reckon he’d still be qualified to lead the state of New Jersey—his taste for younger Israeli men surely has no impact on his ability to govern.

But wait a minute.  Would McGreevey have had a chance to win the top job in Trenton if he were openly gay?  That’s an easy one to answer—hell’s no.  You gotta have a little bit of sympathy for this guy.  His dream was to be a leader, but he (correctly) knew that coming out of the closet would probably relegate him to the sidelines of politics, even in the most liberal of states. 

Maybe McGreevey got away with a helluva bargain in the long run.  By all signs, this guy was going down (insert a fellatio wisecrack here) – if not in the near future in connection with the numerous corruption scandals, then at least by the next election.  McGreevey may have swapped a reputation as a corrupt, bumbling governor for that of America’s first gay governor. 

McGreevey stepped forward and said something that very few politicians—and even fewer of his national prominence—have ever said: “…I am a gay American.”  Full text of his speech.  His speech got my respect.  Americans, gay and otherwise, should look to his words and realize that a minority sexual orientation doesn’t inhibit a man or woman’s ability to serve the public any more than the color of one’s skin or the God one prays to. 

It took courage, no matter what else McGreevey’s done wrong.  The people of New Jersey have many valid complaints about their governor.  There are more than a few pieces missing from this puzzle and they will come out in good time.  His infidelity alone hardly reflects the character the people of New Jersey want and deserve from their governor.  But at the end of the day, despite McGreevey’s many other faults and mistakes, the story will be that our nation had its first openly gay governor and it was James McGreevey.

“I do not believe that God tortures any person simply for its own sake. I believe that God enables all things to work for the greater good. And this, the 47th year of my life, is arguably too late to have this discussion. But it is here, and it is now.

At a point in every person's life, one has to look deeply into the mirror of one's soul and decide one's unique truth in the world, not as we may want to see it or hope to see it, but as it is.

And so my truth is that I am a gay American. And I am blessed to live in the greatest nation with the tradition of civil liberties, the greatest tradition of civil liberties in the world, in a country which provides so much to its people.”