{"id":94,"date":"2004-08-21T13:30:14","date_gmt":"2004-08-21T17:30:14","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.scaredpoet.com\/wordpress\/?p=94"},"modified":"2004-08-22T20:31:11","modified_gmt":"2004-08-23T00:31:11","slug":"the-big-macs-tangled-web","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/scaredpoet.com\/blog\/?p=94","title":{"rendered":"The &#8220;Big Mac&#8217;s&#8221; tangled web"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>The amazingly sensational scandal that has mired the Governor&#8217;s mansion in New Jersey has to it all the hallmarks of the holy trinity of scandals&#8230;  money, sex, and politics.  So, it was only a matter of time before tabloid journalism got involved.  And to add to the mix, the story behind the scandal has, in its own right, gotten just a little more soap opera-esque.<\/p>\n<p><!--more--><\/p>\n<p>The highlights:<\/p>\n<p>&#8211; The Globe, probably the most sensational among sensational tabloids, made the McGreevey scandal its cover story.  True to tabloid form, details were jazzed up a bit.   In its tale, McGreevey is &#8220;one of the nation&#8217;s most influential Democratic governors&#8221; and Dina is his &#8220;<a href=\"http:\/\/us.news2.yimg.com\/us.yimg.com\/p\/ap\/20040814\/capt.njdh10108141419.governor_resigns_njdh101.jpg\">sexy blond wife<\/a>.&#8221;  Golan Cipel is McGreevey&#8217;s &#8220;<a href=\"http:\/\/us.news2.yimg.com\/us.yimg.com\/p\/ap\/20040813\/capt.njbru20208130601.nj_governor_njbru202.jpg\">Israeli boy toy<\/a>.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>I don&#8217;t know about you, but neither are exactly my type.  Certainly not the pictures that come to my mind when I think either &#8220;sexy blonde&#8221; or &#8220;boy toy.&#8221;  But anyway&#8230;<\/p>\n<p>It gets worse.  According to the Globe, McGreevey&#8217;s first marriage dissolved when his wife found a stash of &#8220;love letters from a man;&#8221; ever-anonymous &#8220;insiders&#8221; claim that McGreevey &#8220;fantasized&#8221; about marrying a man, and that when he met his alleged &#8220;boy toy&#8221; [can you tell I&#8217;m milking this term for all its worth?] Golan Cipel, a sweep-you-off-your-feet Kodak moment kicked in: &#8220;The two men locked eyes and McGreevey liked what he saw. &#8216;There was some kind of instant recognition,&#8217; says one source.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>Oh please.  <\/p>\n<p>Then there&#8217;s the allegations about McGreevery&#8217;s past buggerdry.  Again, the Globe:  McGreevey cruised gay bars and gyms in New Jersey and Times Square, calling himself &#8220;the Big Mac.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>Totally not believeable.  Sorry Jim, you just don&#8217;t strike me as beefy or tasty&#8230; but then, neither does a Big Mac.<\/p>\n<p>&#8211; Golan &#8220;Boy Toy&#8221; Cipel has avowed that&#8217;s he&#8217;s straight, never had sex with a man, let alone &#8220;the Big Mac,&#8221; and alleges that everyone&#8217;s favorite governor <a href=\"http:\/\/www.nj.com\/search\/index.ssf?\/base\/news-17\/1092820327234410.xml?starledger?ntop\">acted in a less romantic manner<\/a> than what is portrayed by the governor&#8217;s aides, or by the tabloids.<\/p>\n<p>&#8211; But, that doesn&#8217;t stop the rumours from floating about.  Someone else<a href=\"http:\/\/www.nj.com\/search\/index.ssf?\/base\/news-17\/109298232144540.xml?starledger?ntop\"> claims to have had a tryst of his own<\/a> with Cipel.  However, he also claims to be a CIA intelligence officer, has made various threats regarding terrorist attacks in New Jersey, and<a href=\"http:\/\/www.nj.com\/search\/index.ssf?\/base\/news-17\/109306504911120.xml?starledger?ntop\"> is an all-around wacko<\/a>, according to local authorities.<\/p>\n<p>This is probably about as weird as such stories get without having a team of soap writers behind it all.  How will <a href=\"http:\/\/www.weirdnj.com\/\">Weird NJ<\/a> top this?<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The Governors mansion in NJ is now mired in good old tabloid scandal.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":6,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-94","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-sociopolitical-rants"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/scaredpoet.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/94","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/scaredpoet.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/scaredpoet.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/scaredpoet.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/6"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/scaredpoet.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=94"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/scaredpoet.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/94\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/scaredpoet.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=94"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/scaredpoet.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=94"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/scaredpoet.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=94"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}