Dueling McGreevey's Tell Sordid Story to Oprah
Steve Adubato, Ph.D.
MSNBC Media Analyst

As I was watching Dina Matos McGreevey on “Oprah” the other day, I had very mixed feelings. I’ve known Dina for many years and have always found her to be dignified, classy and understated. When she was First Lady of New Jersey, my sense was that she really cared about making a difference, particularly when it came to the subject of literacy and the importance of reading to our children.

Our children actually go to the same preschool and daughter Jacqueline, who is five, seems like a sweet little girl. But here is the part that concerns me. I understand why Oprah would want Dina to come on the show and give her version of this sordid and salacious story involving a “gay American” ex-governor who did all he could in a few short years to disgrace his office. Let’s be clear. Jim McGreevey disgracing the governor’s office had nothing to do with him being gay and everything to do with him being less than straight, honest and ethical in his dealings and his public decision-making.

The issue I have with the nearly 3-year-old McGreevey saga and Jim and Dina’s dueling books being promoted on Oprah is that I understand that many want to know the lurid and very private details of what Dina knew and when she knew it about Jim being gay, but it has little if anything to do with our lives. Jim McGreevey lowered the bar for public office and raised the ante in his book “The Confession” and Oprah appearance by focusing on the most titillating aspects of leading this secret sexual life, including stories about rest stops and anonymous gay sex. You get the idea. Oprah of course then had to ask Dina how she couldn’t have known that Jim was gay and what signs she saw. Then Dina wound up talking about the sex being just fine between them but still feeling betrayed because she had no clue that Jim was having a gay affair.

Funny, what is truly the most important and newsworthy part of this story—particularly for people in New Jersey—is that Jim McGreevey made decisions as governor that could potentially have put innocent people at risk. He still has never truly answered or made sense of why he named his then lover, Golan Cipel, as his top homeland security advisor; even though Cipel was not an American citizen, had virtually no experience in this most sensitive field and couldn’t get security clearance from the government. McGreevey did this soon after 9/11 knowing how vulnerable the New York Metropolitan area was.

Luckily, the Cipel appointment never happened and McGreevey continued to try to keep his secret lover employed in a series of PR and lobbying firms, even though apparently he had little or any skill or willingness to work. Ultimately, as we know, then Governor McGreevey was allegedly blackmailed by Cipel who threatened to go public with the story of their sexual affair. That’s the news. That’s important. We’re talking about the compromising of the governor’s office because of Jim McGreevey’s personal demons.

Look, we all have weaknesses, some having to do with sex, gambling, food, whatever. But when you are governor and you are living such a blatant lie having to do with such a critical part of who you are, you clearly put yourself, the office and the people at risk for exactly what happened to Jim McGreevey.

The problem with Dina Matos McGreevey’s interview with Oprah is that none of this was in play. Dina was in no position to answer any of these questions or make sense of it for the rest of us. So what she did for an hour was all she could do; be the pained ex-wife of New Jersey’s “gay American” governor who is pushing her new book called “Silent Partner: A Memoir of My Marriage” on the country’s top daytime talk show.

So Dina says things about the now infamous August 9, 2004 McGreevey press conference when Jim told her “in cowardly installments over three days” about his homosexual affair. She says; “It hit me like a ton of bricks…I wasn’t absorbing it. I started to cry.” She says the “fairy tail” of their marriage was a fraud. She also concludes that McGreevey is “bi-sexual” and not gay (in response he says Dina is a “homophobe” and in “denial”) and also takes a shot at his recent behavior over the past couple of years since he left office; “His actions over the past two and a half, three years, are not the actions of someone who was remorseful…he’s always been self-absorbed and it is all about him. I think he has lived in a state of denial for so many years. He doesn’t know what is real and is not.”

Fascinating stuff from Dina, who also says that McGreevey asked her to be like “Jackie Kennedy” at the summer 2004 press conference. She also said he told her to smile at certain points in his speech as well as what to say about the issue of gay marriage, which was that she should be “sensitive to it.”

But here is the rub. This stuff really doesn’t matter in our lives. It’s interesting in a gossipy, tabloid sort of way, but when you really take a step back and think about the potential impact all this book promotion and publicity is going to have on five-year-old Jacqueline you begin to wonder what is really going on here. I don’t begrudge Dina trying to make a few bucks and tell her side of the story. And who wouldn’t go on Oprah if Oprah asked? But what she is able and willing to talk about is just more of the salacious and largely irrelevant aspects of our former governor’s private sexual life in and around the bedroom that has little if any value in our own lives.

Full disclosure; I’ve asked Dina to come on my program on public television, but after watching her on Oprah, I’m not sure exactly what we’d talk about. What I really care about and what matters is how her former husband made the decisions he made having to do with Golan Cipel as well as how compromised he became because of the political contributions he took and the deals he made that ultimately it affected his judgment when in office. Dina can’t answer any of that nor should she have to. But that’s not what Oprah is all about. That’s not what selling books is about, even if one day Jacqueline, when she becomes old enough, gets exposed to all this and realizes what a tragic part of her life this really is. As a parent of three young boys, one of whom is close to Jacqueline’s age, I can’t help but wish the McGreevey’s would stop this public war being played out in their books, on Oprah as well as in court. That’s pretty sad. I kind of wish it would all just go away, don’t you? Write to me at steve.adubato@stand-deliver.com and let me know what you think.

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