I'm out of here

Ah, the old "I may be in trouble so I'll come out of the closet" gambit:

There's one glaring problem with the new Jim McGreevey book that hit store shelves yesterday.

It never mentions why he's no longer the governor of New Jersey.

He was on Oprah yesterday to introduce the book to the American public and, again, neither McGreevey nor Oprah ever mentioned why he had to quit his job and leave Trenton.

He's gay? Big deal. That's not why he was forced out of office.

If he'd been doing a great job as governor and if he'd surrounded himself with top-notch people, he'd still be governor today.

If he'd lowered property taxes, we might have built a statue in his honor.

He quit because he was under all sorts of investigations into all sorts of corruption.

Half of his inner circle went to jail. The other half cut deals.

By agreeing to leave office, he avoided continued investigations into his many legal and ethical quagmires that might have led to impeachment if not indictment.

So, he quit.

And, he quit with a flourish, suddenly revealing that he was a "gay American."

Is there a difference between leading a secret personal life at odds with your public persona and running a government with the kinds of secretiveness that give some people money and power dishonestly? Perhaps the same kind of character trait leads to both practices. A confessional about getting caught up in the corruption of government and politics might really be an instructive read.