WHAT ELSE CAN HAPPEN?
It is bad enough that the Governor of the state of New Jersey, having engaged in unseemly conduct with a male associate, feels he must resign his office. The request arrived urgently, but it seems he doesn't want to hurry into actually departing the tainted area.
If the act was, in itself or for other reason cited, so despicable that resignation is dictated, why put it all off for three months? Under current law for the Garden States if the Chief Gardener, the Governor, falls short of that which was expected and leaves, his troubled trowel is handed over to the head of the state Senate. But, there is a legal, ninety-day limit. Only then can the incumbent party keeps the office in their possession, for the law requires an exit before the ninety days automatically triggers a special election for a new governor.
The Governor, admitting he has been a bad boy, accepts due punishment but wants the official spanking put off for three months or so. The request is , obviously, to foil any new election proceedings being mandated..
If granted, such a plan enables the ex-governor to, more-or-less name his successor. What happen then is any ones guess, because it is difficult to place any real confidence in a man who has, himself, admitted dire wrongdoing.
Many citizens of our nation will look at this incident with horror and disgust, but to add yet another layer of intrigue and falseness to the strange deed that brought it all about this tawdry activity. It is unfortunate for all of us, that this scandal surfaced during the current Presidential Election campaign. Kerry people will claim that Bush people are using mentions of the scandal unfairly as election fodder when it is really a local, New Jersey problem, not a national one at all.
The fact that the resigning Governor added his sex mate to the his state's payroll in a $110,000 per year Home Security position for which he was not qualified, is an even worse aspect of the entire situation.
What can we expect next?
If this scandal has been known to exist in the New Jersey area, what about the rest of the states? Who can better such a show? What does this sort of conduct say to the rest of the world at a time when we're looking for friends and followers?
Jay Leno has commented on it on late night TV: “...another Democrat saying: ' I did not have sex with that woman!'” Other wit-wizards have been less discrete.
It is, on the whole, a shameful thing for New Jersey and for all of us indirectly. A friend of mine commented: “A few months ago people were wondering what President William Jefferson Clinton's actual, true 'legacy' to our nation was going to prove to be. We are now beginning to see it appearing in our national stance and actions.”
A.L.M. August 14, 2004 [c498wds]
