McGreevey, Foley, Ryan, and Wolfowitz

Newsbusters has a good entry on the AP’s PR effort on behalf of former governor Jim McGreevey (D-NJ).

The coverage of McGreevey is interesting when it is compared to the treatment of three Republicans.

Last year, the press insisted that they did not care that Mark Foley was gay; the real issue was his dirty talk with former pages. But with McGreevey, they mostly ignore the corruption and concentrate on his new life as a “gay American.”

In 2004, the press was eager to see the sealed divorce records of Jack and Jeri Ryan. They breathlessly reported on the salacious bits. The disclosures torpedoed Ryan’s campaign for the U.S. Senate and opened the door for Obama. Yet today the MSM is relatively unconcerned about McGreevey’s divorce or his wife’s side of the story.

For months, we have seen news stories about Wolfowitz, his girlfriend, and the World Bank where they both work. This, without a doubt, is a legitimate story. When it comes to McGreevey, however, his comparable scandal gets far less attention. The biggest outrage ends up as a footnote. As Newsbusters points out, McGreevey’s greatest lapse as governor was not being in the closet; it was putting his boy toy on the state payroll in a highly sensitive position. The Democratic wunderkind appointed “a foreign national to a homeland security position, despite a lack of basic experience. McGreevey hired Israeli citizen Golan Cipel to the post, even though not having an adequate security clearance prevented him from attending all of the meetings and briefings for this $110,000 a year post.”

Let's not forget that Oprahfying the McGreevey story has a big upside for one political party.