Missouri Governor Eric Greitens is finding himself in the hot seat as he has been accused of an extramarital affair in 2015. Now normally that's enough, but Greitens is a gun shootin Navy Seal who loves babies and hates unions and taxes which means as long at it wasn't meth and a male prostitiute, he will find forgiveness in my state. Indeed he has already admitted to the affair and he and his wife are moving forward with their lives.
Except there's a pesky little part of the story in which Geritens allegedly blindfolds the woman and she sees the flash of a camera. Greitens then proceeds to blackmail her with the picture, threatening her if their affair gets out. Greitens flat out denies this happening at all.
All of this comes from recording of the woman taken in secret by her ex husband, not to out the governor but for his own selfish needs against her. Really both guys in this story sound like massive assholes.
In this week's episode we talk with Connor Southard who has actually met Greitens before he was governor and on his meteoric rise in politics. Connor confirms everything I've heard of the man, mostly that he's dead eyed and we both suspect everything, even his Navy SEAL training (He was never assigned to a SEAL platoon, but deployed with Marine units, a distinction SEALs don't like) is most likely a part of the facade to build himself politically. There was a group of SEALs who made a video critical of Greiten's service in the SEALs and the four books hes pumped out since his service.
Missouri politics is a weird an unique place, much like every state I imagine. There's the GOP candidate who was frontrunner over Greitens who killed himself over what sounded like a whisper campaign claiming he was Jewish. There's the multiple special sessions Greitens has called to take care of "unfinished business" which costs the taxpayers money, but he's spending his free time outside of the state traveling the world. (Big Trump guy, if you can imagine)
And there's the fact that just no one likes him. As one of our local political reporters Tony Messenger says: He doesn’t make friends, he destroys enemies. He doesn’t forge alliances; he takes hills. He won his race by smirking into the television camera while firing a machine gun into a forest. Now he’s frowning and there’s nothing but carnage surrounding him.
Greitens has already shown himself to shy away from any real talk or help with local BLM protestors, especially in the wake of the Stockley verdict. Greitens was critical of the democratic governor at the time of the Ferguson protests, stating the National Guard should have been called in sooner. We found he himself was hesitant to call in the guards as well. He's not a person who cares beyond your vote, and it feels like he doesn't actually have any positions other than a desire for power. If he thought gun control and pro-choice messaging would get him elected, he'd absolutely make a hard turn.
Lets just say the next few months will be interesting for me locally.