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ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha Sanford ha ha ha ha ha ha ha 'friend' in Argentina (ARGENTINA?) ha ha ha ha ha ha
ha ha
South Carolina Gov. Mark Sanford says he's been unfaithful to his wife with a friend from Argentina
ha ha
ha ha
ha ha
Anytime I get a cheap laugh from a self-righteous hypocritical Republican, it's one of the best laughs in life! Hallelujah!
And Jesus is up there in Heaven right now, laughing with me.
ha ha
South Carolina Gov. Mark Sanford says he's been unfaithful to his wife with a friend from Argentina
ha ha
ha ha
ha ha
Anytime I get a cheap laugh from a self-righteous hypocritical Republican, it's one of the best laughs in life! Hallelujah!
And Jesus is up there in Heaven right now, laughing with me.
ha ha
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Anybody who cannot see that Jesus, Our Lord & Savior does not have a sense of humor. (blesses himself just in case)
hahahahahaha
you have me laughing hahahahaha
June 24, 2009 4:42 PM | Reply | Permalink
Sorry to be a spoilsport, but Jenny Sanford is not laughing. Nor are her children. And neither are the people who admire her.
But do go ahead and laugh as, in the narrow sense you mean it, Mark Sanford has earned whatever.
June 24, 2009 4:47 PM | Reply | Permalink
Belle, I am sorry to have added to this if in fact it has disturbed your sensibilities. His wife is a fine woman and I...
I just hate that hypocritical sob soooooooo much.
And yet, yes, he has children and other family besides his wife who are now bowing their heads in shame.
I am sorry if I offended you.
Again, I really hate this man for what he stands for.
If anything, now.
June 24, 2009 4:58 PM | Reply | Permalink
No need to apologize to me, DD. All opinions certainly valid in the big picture. It's just in the intimate close-up that the pain of real people is seen.
In an obvious way, I'm being a jerk, but I've watched eighteen years of one woman's effort -- and, yes, personal sacrifice -- go down in flaming ignominy to the greater god of Mark Sanford's conflict between right and right wing expediency.
For Christ's sake, might he have apologized to Jenny first, who is the primary aggrieved party, before he apologized to the state of South Carolina and then his children, and only then to the person most personally and grievously harmed?
God's teeth, said the indignant woman, just back from the dentist.
June 24, 2009 5:06 PM | Reply | Permalink
Belle, you are incapable of being a jerk.
I am, on the other hand.
I am beginning to feel more sentimental than I would like. All due to you!!!
I am so sorry if I have offended you.
I will say this. This man has done nothing for the poor, nothing for the minorities, nothing except keep that confederate flag aflyin' and I am sick and tired of these racist, oligarchist, aristocratic southern relics.
But that is not to say that his wife or children are to blame. Again I am sorry if I have offended thee. Honest to God. No kidding.
June 24, 2009 6:05 PM | Reply | Permalink
His wife IS to blame. She lied in order to keep the facade in place.
Supposedly--supposedly--she asked him to leave two weeks ago. Two weeks ago. Timing is everything.
I have no doubt that these people have done everything they could to keep Mark Sanford in his governor's seat, and to keep this secret. But something important is forgotten here: Their religious hypocrisy.
Hypocrites inflame me, and when they fall, it makes me laugh. You laughed. Then your good friend turned out to not see it funny. But it IS funny--to you and I.
I will not be cross-examined or scolded for a silly thing like this, just because somebody knows these people personally. Everything I've claimed is either my opinion or true, and both are valid, just like her opinion.
But how many people know Mark and Jenny Sanford personally--and who's right? All of us, or those few?
Kee-RIPES. I can't get twenty comments on a blog post without causing a friggin' controversy? What the hell...?
June 24, 2009 6:22 PM | Reply | Permalink
His wife is to blame?????? Because her kneejerk reaction, honed after eighteen years of political conditioning, is to try to contain the damage????
Excuse me. Did Jenny Sanford have an affair? Or was it Mark who did? Place the blame where it belongs. As well as the long term damage.
June 24, 2009 6:44 PM | Reply | Permalink
When you lie to the public about where your husband is, you're part of the conspiracy, babe. Sorry. You're wrong, even if you can't see it.
She's your friend. Talk about knee-jerk reactions. And a knee-jerk reaction conditioned by 18 years of political activity does NOT excuse lying to the citizens of the state of South Carolina, while Sanford preached about God's values and laws for five long years that he was diddling Maria. Not to mention, she lied to the entire country, because Sanford was considered a good prospect to run for President in 2012.
Remember?
Yes. Jenny is complicit, whether you admit it or not. Man, that's got to hurt, and I do not mean to rub it in, but you're in here swinging, and so am I.
June 24, 2009 10:35 PM | Reply | Permalink
As hypocritical as Sanford was in his actions, you are being in your overwrought condemnation of those actions.
This sort of vitriol and immaturity will not move this country in the right direction. Hate is disappointing when it comes from the right, but it is downright debilitating when it comes from the left. Democrats have to be the grown-ups right now or no one else will be.
This is not the first (nor will it be the last) hypocrite from either party who cheated on his wife and then lied to get away with it. Most politicians strike me as cowardly people in general, never mind when scandal breaks out.
Drop the stones and walk away from the glass house as neither party has a monopoly on hypocrisy.
June 25, 2009 8:19 AM | Reply | Permalink
I'm with Jason on this one. All she said was that she didn't know where her husband was; she wasn't covering up for him so he could get laid in Argentina.
Even if she was complicit, out of fear or whatever, I really don't think it makes any sense to put it on the same level as having an affair. Degrees of wrongness exist, and we have to acknowledge them.
June 25, 2009 9:50 AM | Reply | Permalink
Good point. There are degrees of wrongness that must be addressed in this and many other cases.
The key is to be as logical and dispassionate as possible in that examination or it becomes yet another shouting match where nothing is resolved and no lessons learned. Emotional condemnation inflames the discussion and causes those we are seeking to support our common sense efforts at societal reforms to circle the wagons around people they probably don't even like.
Given the proper decibel level, this could have been a perfect teaching moment for the left. As it is, all I am left with is Randie Rhodes on Air America in drive-time talking about ass-less chaps and anal beads and something about Carnival as well, though that is more a Brazil thing and not at this time of year anyway. Idiocy of the highest level. Does the progressive movement really want their own infantile demagogues as a foil for the infantile demagogues on the far right?
That doesn't seem to make much strategic or tactical sense to me given the challenges we face and the obstacles we must overcome.
June 25, 2009 10:29 AM | Reply | Permalink
We are not discussing obstacles to overcome or learning lessons in this thread. Those are excellent subjects for discussion.
This thread is about the humor in the situation, and because someone responded who was one degree away from it personally, it turned into defending that humor, and defending the condemnation of religious political hypocrisy.
What have you learned from this--except that I don't have the manners you might approve of, of course...? Seriously. What is the learning lesson, if I never spoke up with all my 'ha ha ha ha's?
June 25, 2009 4:19 PM | Reply | Permalink
Using "We're all just joking..." as an excuse for partisan sniping is weak. Further, your justification for your opinion quickly took this from the realm of the comical to the realm of the personal.
A thread on a blog is an organic, living thing, so it is useless to control what is or isn't said on it. That you would say that self-reflection and learning lessons is a good idea then turn right around and fail to even consider actually performing the task is both sad and ironic.
I had hoped for better from the left when they took over. Appears they are every bit as juvenile and unforgiving as the right.
June 25, 2009 4:31 PM | Reply | Permalink
I asked you what the learning lesson was, and you ride me for not giving you one. WTF...?
You said it was important to learn a lesson from this. What's the lesson, aside from your finger-wagging in my direction?
And: I didn't make this personal, Wendy did. She worked with Jenny Sanford. I defended myself from her 'attacks' (she was incredibly civil and easy to discuss this with, actually, despite calling me an asshat at one point, for which I instantly forgave HER).
So you're wrong there, sir. What's the learning lesson here? Keep my mouth shut, maybe? Don't hold your breath. And you sound more like a Republican scold than a progressive, wringing your hands over what somebody might think about how I express myself on this issue.
As George W. Bush said himself, to paraphrase him: Who cares what Republicans think?
June 25, 2009 4:37 PM | Reply | Permalink
The learning lesson, since you asked, is democrats reclaiming the morals argument by more effectively using these emerging personal issues.
Not by demonizing their opponents but by empathizing with them. I was not speaking of this blog, though your delusions of grandeur might certainly suggest that as being the case. I was speaking more generally about the overall topic.
By the way, opinions are neither right nor wrong, by definition, and politics isn't always a zero sum game. In fact, I would suggest the thing the republicans never learned was that democrats "losing" means we are all worse off. That democrats seem unwilling to apply the inverse strikes me as a horribly damaging irony.
June 25, 2009 4:41 PM | Reply | Permalink
And I think that the Democrats are not reclaiming the morals argument. They're not seizing it. They're just standing there, letting the Republican hypocrites and opportunists implode. They're not reclaiming it by attrition...not as long as the media and Republicans charge us all with treason, un-Godliness, immoral, etc.
Just because Sanford got caught doesn't mean they're going to change tactics. Those tactics and their religious followers are all the Republicans have left at this point. If anything, they're just circling the wagons, and the Democrats are letting them do that.
Your insistence that the Democrats are now the Party of Religious Values is just...not working for me. I was gonna write something else, but why bother, even if it would have made me laugh...?
June 25, 2009 4:49 PM | Reply | Permalink
By demonizing the opposition, circling the wagons is all that will ever happen in this political environment.
Your claim that the democratic party is any less religious than the republican party - regardless of the specifics of that belief - is kind of odd and not in keeping with the actual statistics. For what it us worth, I never claimed the democrats were the new religious party or whatever it is you are claiming.
That is just more partisan crap that halts any sort of serious discussion.
June 25, 2009 4:54 PM | Reply | Permalink
She was his Number One advisor, the architect of his entire political career. The Woman behind the Man. His Nancy Reagan.
To my well-deserved skeptical view of this, she knew everything. He was going down there to settle things in person, because she (again, I'm skeptical, so I have to add the word 'supposedly') had given him an ultimatum.
This entire fiasco has been filled with lies from the start. I'm not quite ready to believe these people's word for anything--including Jenny Sanford. I'm not ready to believe that to her, his career and its ability to take care of her and their sons didn't come before the truth, public service, and morality in general as espoused from both his and her bully pulpits.
Caught with pants down. BOTH of them. I cannot give people like this the benefit of the doubt any more, and I don't understand why anyone who isn't a dead-ender 23%-er wilfully blind Republican would, either.
June 25, 2009 4:16 PM | Reply | Permalink
Let's get one thing straight: I do not hate Mark Sanford. For you to conclude that I hate him is not due to any miscommunication on MY part, but YOURS.
I do, however, have serious problems with not what Mark Sanford IS, but what he DOES and has DONE. It is his actions that are reprehensible, criminal, impossible to reconcile with a true Christian outlook of mercy, judging NOT, and charity to the poor. And I'm not even referencing the adultery here--but his 'compassionate conservative' politics and the use of religion in getting elected. 'God's Laws', indeed.
You have a choice here, to prove your point: Tell us all one Democrat who used religion to get elected. I mean, in that old-tyme religious fashion of demonizing sinners and lazy shiftless people (read: blacks and beaners) and Muslims and immigrant hordes, etc, etc, etc. Just one, but a national office that's NOT in the Deep South.
You can't, dude, and that's what makes the Republicans the hypocrites in this discussion and NOT the Democrats. Your point is yours, but that doesn't make it accurate.
June 25, 2009 4:12 PM | Reply | Permalink
The hate fairly drips of your comments for anyone you don't agree with. It is as palpable and illogical and intractable as what we have seen out of the far right all these years.
Religion is only one data point and not relavent to this discussion, but Obama used his religion as a talking point throughout the campaign as did every single democrat during the primary with the possible exception of Hillary Clinton and Dennis Kucinich, so your protestations to the contrary are again out of line with reality. The left is every bit as religious as the right, they are just usually a little less in your face about it.
The simple fact of that matter is that you use hyperbole and invective to castigate one side of the playing field while conveniently forgetting the foibles of your own team.
June 25, 2009 4:25 PM | Reply | Permalink
PS: Name a single democratic candidate for president in the last two decades that didn't wear religion on their sleeve or at least mention it during their campaign? In fact, name a single democratic candidate for national office who ran as an atheist and won. See how ridiculous such a straw-man request is when trying to have a serious debate?
June 25, 2009 4:35 PM | Reply | Permalink
You really are a stubborn mule if you think there's no difference between the Dems and the Republicans in using religion to get elected.
Are you sure you're a Democrat? A liberal or a progressive? Because if you think there's no difference, I'd have to say you don't think much.
You may READ hate in my words, but the filter you got there is getting dirty, pal. I have said it, and when somebody tells me something, I generally have to believe them (unless they pull a Sanford and lie a lot from the beginning). I don't hate Mark Sanford or George W. Bush. I most certainly hate what they have DONE. There is a huge, huge difference. Try to think of what it is, because explaining my views to you just isn't working.
And trust me: Hating what those two have done is a good thing. Getting angry about torture, refusing SCHIP and stimulus funds, etc, etc, etc, (add a litany of conservative lists here), is the only logical reaction.
June 25, 2009 4:45 PM | Reply | Permalink
Dude, you are constantly ripping on republicans and calling for all manner of castigation of conservatives regardless of what they might actually believe. Call it what you want, but I guarantee it looks like hate to the objects of derision.
Further, what the hell does acknowledging that both parties use religion have to do with being a progressive? That is a serious non sequiter. It is a difference in degrees only and depending on the discussion at hand (such as gay marriage) the difference isn't that great at all.
You clearly have a bias against religion in general and religious republicans in particular. You also have an obvious bias toward your side of the fences, which is to be expected in a liberal partisan, but at least be honest about it. There aren't many on the left wing of the democratic party who truly understand the more religious among us.
June 25, 2009 4:49 PM | Reply | Permalink
PS: Again, for whatever good it does, I am not religious myself. Never have been.
I just don't see any benefit to tilting at that particular windmill in today's day and age nor do I see it as being a winning tactic for the democratic party. Despite what you might think, I am hoping the democrats do "win" as they have all the good ideas.
I just don't think it is possible for them to win using the same tactics that the far right has used all these years.
June 25, 2009 4:57 PM | Reply | Permalink
I have no bias against religion. I have a real problem with the lack of separation of church and state for the last twenty years, which has been a real and distinct REPUBLICAN strategy. And it has worked, in case you hadn't noticed.
You have a bad habit of making incorrect conclusions about what I write about. You should ask me more questions instead of making bold statements, if you really want to find out what I think, and have a discussion.
June 25, 2009 5:12 PM | Reply | Permalink
Perhaps you should look at what and how you write to see why someone would come to that conclusion?
There has been very little separation of church and state since the country was founded, let alone the last 20 years. I will agree that they got more in your face with it in modern politics, but religion has been a steady undercurrent to the American experience, including its politics.
As to religious appeals working, that is true. They have worked to a certain extent these last twenty years. In case you missed it, though, that appeal has gotten weaker and weaker since then. The trend is clearly moving away from the dominance of extreme ideologies, including those from the Rapture Right.
June 25, 2009 5:19 PM | Reply | Permalink
How many votes would a Democrat co-opt by wearing his religion on his sleeve, compared with an ultra-conservative Republican like Mike Huckabee? Hell, Romney couldn't even win with those voters.
Cah MAHN! I really am trying to have a serious discussion here. I'm trying to keep up. You're a good writer, cogent, easy to understand, etc. But I'm getting the feeling that it's arguing for the sake of arguing at this point, especially when you're trying to make the Democrats JUST AS HOLIER-THAN-THOU as the Republicans. That is simply...laughable. Sorry!
June 25, 2009 5:05 PM | Reply | Permalink
Again, provide an actual quote where I said democrats are just as guilty of this sort of hypocrisy as republicans? I didn't say that and don't think that. They are hypocrites for other reasons, but that would take too much time to explain and is way off topic.
What I was disputing was the idea that the republican party, and by extension anyone who identifies as republican, are the only people who commit this sort of mistake. I also dispute that democrats are any less susceptible to this than republicans are, despite the varying levels of rhetoric to the contrary.
You still didn't provide a single national democratic candidate who ran and won as an atheist, yet there are a couple of openly gay members. What does that say about the relative importance of religious definitions to both parties?
There is no right answer, here, by the way. Only our interpretation of a fairly complex and contradictory reality that we all must live with here in the United States.
June 25, 2009 5:10 PM | Reply | Permalink
Mark Sanford was one of the Republican Party's 'leaders'. He was, and still is, as far as I can see, a self-righteous pig whose political ambitions exceeded everything else in his purview, including his state's citizens' welfare, by 'refusing' stimulus money just so he could position himself politically.
Everything was sacrificed to his political ambitions--except his Argentine poon-tang. It looks like he couldn't say no to that, and it has now killed whatever chance he had to run for President--not that he ever would have won that office...
And that, whether you agree or not, is pure comedy GOLD, baby!
Jenny Sanford may not be laughing, but she married the self-righteous pig, so I really don't feel too sorry for her. I'll bet she's known this for a long time, and I would bet again that this wasn't his first stray. Most political wives know, including Elizabeth Edwards. To assume otherwise--to assume that these wives are finding out these scandals at the exact same time we all are--is silly and sophomoric, to say the least.
June 24, 2009 4:56 PM | Reply | Permalink
No one is asserting that Jenny is only now learning about this. On the contrary, by Mark's own statement, she has had the gut-wrenching pleasure of knowing about it for five months.
Put yourself in her shoes, you unfeeling Asshat. Jenny Sanford is, at once, a wife, and also a mother of not one, but four boys and, also, the First Lady of South Carolina. Any pressure there, do you think, to try to deal with a private agony, privately????
The person who is silly and sophomoric is not I, DaddyO; it is you.
June 24, 2009 5:12 PM | Reply | Permalink
If she knew, then she was complicit. She was trying not to hold their marriage together...but his political career.
Calling me an asshat? Why are you insulting ME? Do you have a dog in this fight? Ever had a spouse cheat on you? Is this more personal to you, or are you just plain righter than me?
I've explained myself thoroughly without insulting YOU. Eh.
June 24, 2009 5:19 PM | Reply | Permalink
I do have a dog in this fight. Two dogs in fact. For starters, I know Jenny Sanford, I know her brother and his wife, and I know to what lengths she has resorted to keep her family together. And, yes, since you ask, long ago I lived a pale and far more private version of her experience, as too many women have done before me and too many have done since I did it.
You, of course, will then insist that I am the projecting my own discomfort onto a current event. To which I will reply, ahead of your accusation, that the pain of marital betrayal may be nearly universal, but mine is a blessedly distant memory and, regardless, very few are required to experience same in the limelight of national and international attention.
Jenny Sanford, and her children, are due our thoughtful reflections. No matter how flagrantly Mark Sanford has self-indulged and thereby self-immolated.
How old are you, Daddy-O? Check back with me with the perspective of decades of experience and observation. Then we can talk. sacrificed much has taken that gift for granted and thrown in back in one's face.
June 24, 2009 5:44 PM | Reply | Permalink
I'm 52. I appreciate an insult-free response, like this one. I also appreciate your closeness to the situation.
I'm sorry, but...but...your closeness to the situation IS probably causing you pain, and a lack of objectivity. I don't expect anyone to laugh at the same things I find funny. But you really can't defend Jenny. The main reason I came back here is to post this, which I just read on another blog: She has also been caught lying in this affair. She claimed she didn't know where he was, but she did. She's known about this for five months--if not longer.
And in case I need to repeat it, some of my best friends have been unfaithful. They're still my best friends, and I know the humanity behind an affair. I know the reasons can be perfectly rational, or understandable, at the least.
But I'll be damned if I'm gonna apologize because I find hilarious yet another hypocritical, religious, ambitious, fundamentalist-Christian-abuser's infidelity, and the subsequent implosion of his political career. This is a GOOD thing--not the affair, but the OUTCOME. Other politicians who espouse values identical to Sanford's, even if they're faithful to their wives, even if they're NOT hypocrites, have no right to demand that the rest of us follow their religions by using religion to get elected.
I'm sorry for your pain. But I'm still laughing at your friend's pathetic husband.
June 24, 2009 6:01 PM | Reply | Permalink
Agree absolutely daddy-o.
Republicans Are Only Sorry When They Get Caught.
At least Edwards and Clinton weren't members of the self-righteous holier than thou GOP that supports the government butting into and running the reproductive tract of every fertile woman in the country. They also didn't call their opponents unpatriotic, babykillers or socialists. The fact is Republicans do not care about women, they use them.
Jenny and her ilk can go stuff it. She deserves it for marrying the guy.
June 24, 2009 7:18 PM | Reply | Permalink
I absolutely have to agree, Noble, and I appreciate the shout out in here.
She's made her bed, now she has to lie in it, as the old folks say. And: She subjected her kids to this life, this public political path she chose. SHE chose.
It's awful, but when a politician makes hay with 'morals' and is caught with his or her pants down, they deserve every single thing that happens to them--short of getting killed, of course. That ain't funny, but just about everything else is grist for the mill.
June 24, 2009 10:38 PM | Reply | Permalink
Edwards and Clinton both sermonizes about being faithful to your vows. They used their "family guy" status to get elected. Every politician who has ever ran, on both sides of the political divide, have used family values and their families themselves to get elected. They all pass laws based in a self-righteous sense of their own importance, neglecting their own violation of those laws over and over again.
Claiming superiority on this issue because the liberal position on this things is supposedly different than the conservative one is intellectually dishonest at best. Most politicians of both parties run on the sanctity of marriage vows, regardless of their stance on gay marriage or even whether they are actually married.
This is a MAN problem. As in, many powerful guys find it impossible to resist the allure of interesting, interested or simply available women. They consider it a perk. That is the debate here, not a partisan opportunity to score cheap points off the disintegration of a family that is occurring under the hot lights of the media's lurid attention.
If we want to change our politics and how they are covered then we need to show indifference to things like this.
June 25, 2009 8:28 AM | Reply | Permalink
If you're trying to compare Clinton and Edwards or even Obama's Christianity to a typical Republican's, you just lost me. Have you been paying the slightest bit of attention for the last twenty years? Ever heard of Jerry Falwell? Did Jerry ever endorse a Democrat in his entire life?
Mark Sanford was one part of a huge cabal that rolled up extreme conservatism with religion and used that hammer to nearly ruin this country. The apex of their design was two terms of George W. Bush.
NO Democrat that I know of who's run for national office was a real-deal born again Christian, railing against sinners as well as deficits. NO one. You are dead wrong, and losing me here, sir.
June 25, 2009 4:22 PM | Reply | Permalink
Jimmy Carter considers himself born again, as does Obama. You really need to read more.
June 25, 2009 4:27 PM | Reply | Permalink
You have a point. I may be reading the 'signals' of Republican religion-abusing politicians more clearly than those of Democrats.
But whether or not Clinton sent any of those signals, everyone knew he was accused of adultery before he was elected. He never really had a chance with the Religious Right.
I still say that, like Josh said right on the front page, several times more religious Republican politicians get caught this way than Democrats. That makes them the Party of Hypocrisy, Jason, and your assertions otherwise give me the impression that, like a lot of liberals and progressives, you're much too willing to give them the benefit of the doubt. At this point, the Republican brand is soured, and they pretty much have to prove they're NOT religious hypocrites, or else I have to assume otherwise.
June 25, 2009 4:55 PM | Reply | Permalink
I am actually a registered republican. I give them no benefit of the doubt. I can hardly name any modern republicans who deserve the title.
What I am saying is that human nature will drive the republican faithful further to the right if democrats are too aggressive in their demonization of the GOP. I think the very best tactic that democrats can use now is sort of a bemused indifference. Like the crazy uncle who gets drunk at the reunions and say crazy shit.
The neocons are in the process of destroying the credibility they built with the conservative grassroots after more than forty years of running the republican party. The only thing that democrats can do right now is slow the process of evolution down. I saw be good role-models for when the GOP finally re-emerges and seeks a new identity.
I know this seems counter-intuitive. We have all been taught to kick them while they are down to ensure they never get up and hurt us again. Great advice in a fight or in war. Only problem is, in politics that means losing the very people you need to support your efforts.
June 25, 2009 5:03 PM | Reply | Permalink
Everything you've written in this post is agreeable to me. Except one thing.
I am not the Democratic Party. I am one dude with a blog that no one ever responds to. Until yesterday and today.
The Democrats aren't even talking about this in the media. They don't have to, and they aren't stupid. I CAN talk about it; I CAN have an outrageous opinion; I CAN rejoice that Mark Sanford's neoconservative agenda is nearly finished.
And if I've turned more people off than on with this post, well, so be it. If nobody else bothers to respond to any of my outrageous posts, so be it. I won't be any worse off than I was before. I got a hundred comments for the first time today (and half of them were MINE, ha ha!), and only THREE recommends. That tells me something, and it isn't likely that I'll be making a living posting a blog any time soon.
I never said the Democrat should be saying what I'm saying here. I know better than that, too. The only people I'm 'turning off' are Republicans who are wincing because of Sanford. Like you, I suppose. Eh.
June 25, 2009 5:18 PM | Reply | Permalink
Actually, you are the democratic party. Each and every person on this site represents the progressive-minded in the political arena.
There are plenty of "lurkers" who keep the lights on at TPM who get an impression from reading things around here. They pop up every now and then to comment, but mostly they are simply page views in the TPM advertising literature. I see this site as an representing mostly progressive thought in the Internet hinterlands and I guess many moderate republicans probably think the same thing.
I am simply offering my take on what I see in some corners of the democratic party. It can be heard in the "liberal" radio that is becoming more popular and the "liberal" voices in the MSM. it is is a willingness to use the same sort of heated rhetoric and political gamesmanship that the neocons have used these last forty years to damn near destroy the country.
All I am saying is that the country is in transition and that includes the republican party. Not the idiots at the helm who drove it into the rocks, but the silent majority who were simply enjoying their time on the ship and probably paid less attention to what was coming out of their party than the democrats did.
June 25, 2009 5:27 PM | Reply | Permalink
PS: The point was that while both ran they used "family values" as a talking point over and over. Edwards used his religion as a reason for being against gay marriage. It has nothing to do with the relative level of each side's Christianity. I am not even sure how one could measure that anyway.
June 25, 2009 4:43 PM | Reply | Permalink
Well, political scientists can certainly measure it. It's real. That's why the Republicans use it, every single day.
Democrats use religion in a vain attempt to draw some Religious Right voters, and simply sustain their numbers. You're right about atheists never being able to be elected, but not because they're not a huge minority (some numbers put them at 15% of the population). Maybe Democrats are more sly about not turning off those millions of atheists/agnostics/unaligned-with-any-major-religion voters, but that doesn't make them hypocrites.
Republicans are hypocrites just by getting out of bed in the morning. JOKE. JOKE.
June 25, 2009 5:09 PM | Reply | Permalink
Political "scientists" have a hard time measuring voter turnout, let alone something as amorphous as religion and the relative importance it plays for each individual. There are very few people who make a living at politics that I would trust to offer unbiased or accurate information.
June 25, 2009 5:13 PM | Reply | Permalink
Absolute bullshit. You sound like someone who would pooh-pooh an academic--especially when they have the facts on their side that you can't bring yourself to agree with.
Lots and lots of political scientists are reality-based. It IS a science. Results matter. Election outcomes are probably the most important events in our history, by definition. This is definitely your worst argument yet.
The Religious Right is a major player. They DEMAND their nominees play the game: Pray in public, condemn sin, demonize liberals and Democrats, yes, DEMOCRATS. And to think you told me I needed to read more...this is Poli-Sci 101 stuff, Jason.
I'm ready to drop this whenever you are.
June 25, 2009 5:23 PM | Reply | Permalink
It is not a science. Physics is a science. Political Science is a soft-science at best and a collection of opinions that are rarely proved correct at worst.
June 25, 2009 5:30 PM | Reply | Permalink
I took Poly-Sci 101 as well. I took sociology and psychology and many other soft sciences as well. I found them all to be barely credible on most things regarding individuals.
The fact that religion plays a part in republican politics is not in dispute. That one can measure it using political science "methodologies" and come to some sort of conclusion based on that is nonsense.
The study of group dynamics is only going to get one so far before they have to rely on their own intuition and judgment based on actual observed facts.
June 25, 2009 5:34 PM | Reply | Permalink
What's with the disdain for the social sciences?
Let me borrow from the ol' Wiki for a moment:
How about this: in the study of cultural anthropology, through the use of systematic ethnographic measures and methods, one can make predictions about outcomes of cultural behaviors, practices, and so on. In the field of psychology, through systematic measures, observations and methods, we have come to know a great deal about, for example, child development. I wonder if you'd consider Darwin's theory of evolution scientific. His observations on Galapagos Island were collected in much the same way. And as his studies have merged with later science to shed much more light onto things, psychology and neuroscience are now doing the same.
Now. This isn't to say that there isn't room for error. Indeed, there is, more so when you mix us crazy humans in things. So I won't pretend there aren't any differences between the social sciences and the physical sciences. But what you deem "science" is constantly confronting errors in previous thought, readjusting, and so on. That's the nature of it. So I don't really get the total contempt for the rest of it.
June 25, 2009 7:30 PM | Reply | Permalink
So the choice is contempt or worship?
I have no disdain for social sciences, quite the contrary, but cultural anthropology isn't used to manipulate people toward political ends. I have yet to hear an opinion by a political scientist that struck me as all that revolutionary, though I have heard plenty of shit. That Freud and Jung could exist as revered authorities for the same "science" is all I need to know.
My main point was the "soft sciences" are more opinion than science, so I feel no obligation to give it the same weight as the Law of Gravity or Theory of Evolution.
June 26, 2009 8:26 AM | Reply | Permalink
The term "Religious Right" doesn't have the intonation that it once held. The groups the modern Republican party is appealing to is the "burn in hell crowd"; dancing, swearing, bearing false witness, non-practical sex... these things send you to hell.
June 25, 2009 5:27 PM | Reply | Permalink
Jason -- you said: "This is a MAN problem. As in, many powerful guys find it impossible to resist the allure of interesting, interested or simply available women. They consider it a perk. That is the debate here, not a partisan opportunity to score cheap points off the disintegration of a family that is occurring under the hot lights of the media's lurid attention."
Thank you for saying what a woman could not say without incurring a deluge of vitriol. This is a MAN problem, or, more specifically, an Entitled Man problem. I am very grateful to you for both your non-partisan and gender-aware take.
June 25, 2009 8:01 PM | Reply | Permalink
Thanks for the kind words. It seems obvious to me that the bugaboo everyone has been so afraid to name for, oh I don't know, the last 1,500 years or so is the White Western (usually Christian) Male Leader.
Not your normal, run of the mill white guys. We're talking the Masters of the Universe crowd who have been running things for a very long time. This peculiar creature was increasingly bold and brazen the last century or so, turning up the heat on the global pot until it has very nearly boiled over. Of course, they have counterparts in every society, but "my crew" really took it to a new level. Domination and subjugation via economic, societal and psychological insecurity.
Machiavelli would have been proud of such a brilliantly ruthless plan that saw its culmination in the administration who just left office and who in decline elsewhere around the world in various ways. We are now witnessing the inevitable fall from power (one that will most likely be as long and painful as the ascent) that most liberals have wanted for so long that they seemed to have missed its arrival.
Again, it all seems so obvious that I am baffled that we would spend half a second debating this when 36 school-age children have been murdered on Chicago streets so far this year.
June 26, 2009 8:19 AM | Reply | Permalink
This kind of pain doesn't make me laugh. The guy fell in love with another woman. It's turned out very badly for him, for his wife, for his family and probably for the other woman.
June 24, 2009 5:03 PM | Reply | Permalink
cosign.
June 24, 2009 5:16 PM | Reply | Permalink
?
June 24, 2009 5:19 PM | Reply | Permalink
Thirded. I would have joined in the laughing if he was caught celebrating Naked Hiking Day on the trail, but to witness someone playing out their personal and private transgressions on a public stage is not entertainment to me. It's just very, very sad.
June 24, 2009 6:14 PM | Reply | Permalink
Fourth-ed?
June 25, 2009 8:33 AM | Reply | Permalink
The 'other woman' will get a 6 figure book deal, or at least high 5 figures for a tell it all piece in a tabloid, and the moment of fame so many seek today.
June 24, 2009 11:17 PM | Reply | Permalink
But...but...but...
His pain is entirely SELF-INFLICTED. It would take me sixty seconds to find a speech he made that embraced marriage between one man and one woman, condemning liberals for adultery, condemning Bill Clinton for his affair, etc, etc, etc.
There is much, much more going on here than his little family. There is the thwarting of a decent, human-based progressive agenda. Sanford was the voice of the Republican Party in many ways.
I understand only too well that it's possible to have an affair and still be a decent human being; I've heard stories firsthand, told in confidence. I used to think it was an awful thing, against my personal morals, as in "How could anyone do that?" until I befriended folks who told me their story from their point of view. It's possible and even likely that Sanford IS a decent human being.
But his SELF-RIGHTEOUS REPUBLICAN GRANDSTANDING got him elected, got him nationwide fame, got him everything he wanted in life--and now it's bit him in the ass, for GOOD. It's a happy ending as far as I'm concerned.
June 24, 2009 5:09 PM | Reply | Permalink
What I don't understand is why he didn't wear a disguise on the trip home. At the very least one of those Gaucho Marks glasses/nose/moustache thingies.
June 24, 2009 5:44 PM | Reply | Permalink
Who is the gaucho, amigo?
Why is he standing
In your spangled leather poncho,
With the studs that match your eyes?
June 24, 2009 6:15 PM | Reply | Permalink
If the guy was some kind of threat to implementing some political ideal I hold dear, perhaps I could see the use of his personal decisions to impede him. As it stands, I guess I just don't care. The whole gestalt of the sanctimonious hinges on a subscription to the thesis that all of our fuck ups in life are just one more nail in the coffin of our eternal suffering. I guess I just don't see how any of this is important. Politically he'll be crucified by his own constituents for falling so low, so why should I bother to jump on that bandwagon? And while the right has left itself particularly vulnerable to these criticisms, the left is equally exposed, at least politically. Bill Clinton is one of the few pols who survived a sex scandal, and I think he survived it at least partially because the right spent sooo much time, money, and political capital trying to bring him down, that they made themselves look ridiculous in the process. This is tabloid fodder in the end, and has little impact on the greater world we inhabit.
June 24, 2009 6:49 PM | Reply | Permalink
And tabloids, generally speaking, make me laugh. As they do 99% of Americans.
I am capable of sympathy for just about anybody. I'm not a terrible person. Neither is Mark Sanford, for that matter, or George W. Bush.
But what they have DONE compared with what I have done in my life? Terrible. Terrible, all around.
June 24, 2009 10:50 PM | Reply | Permalink
I envy the surety of your moral position.
June 24, 2009 11:21 PM | Reply | Permalink
Not sure how one gets to be a 52-year-old democrat without having their moral certainty squashed into something more closely resembling empathy. Life is full of surprises.
June 25, 2009 4:37 PM | Reply | Permalink
Here's the moral surety of my position, pal:
I haven't lied, stolen or killed anyone in the last eight years. George W. Bush has done plenty of that, with direct help from Mark Sanford.
Compared to me, they are hideous monsters, and that's simply reality-based fact, not opinion or conjecture.
I'll go out on a limb and say you occupy a nearly identical moral surety position as me, since you seem to be a decent person--except in your judgment of ME, anyway. Harsh.
June 25, 2009 5:02 PM | Reply | Permalink
Please quote from what I've written where I even made a judgment of you, let alone a harsh one.
June 25, 2009 7:47 PM | Reply | Permalink
Well put Daddy-O.
Did Sanford or his party ever care about the poor raped teenager who couldn't get a first trimester abortion?
Did they ever want to pay an extra dime in taxes if they forced her to have the child? Who vetoed extension of SCHIP, health care for poor kids? The last Republican administration.
June 24, 2009 11:10 PM | Reply | Permalink
Y'all make me weary. Is it testosterone-driven aggression that compels you to dance on the funeral pyre of a genuinely decent woman and her children? Or to whoop and holler in glee for the unexpected suicide of a male foe -- even one not worthy of your animus?
Curiously, in tone, you're sounding the refrain of BillO et al. And you think you are reasonable, gentle, tolerant liberals.
June 24, 2009 6:00 PM | Reply | Permalink
Wendy, I don't think it's testosterone based - women do the judgy thing just as much as men.
You can see in Sanford the hypocrisy of someone who trumpeted family values who failed to live what he preaches. But the celebration of his personal destruction or treating it like entertainment? I think that's wrong whether it's Sanford or Ensign, Clinton or Edwards. Yes they are politicians, but they are also real people with real families and this just seems inhumane to me. The celebration of someone's personal destruction has always seemed very GOP to me and I hate to see progressives starting to trend towards such moralizing.
June 24, 2009 6:28 PM | Reply | Permalink
It's schadenfreude. And we're all guilty of it to some degree, for different things.
June 24, 2009 6:31 PM | Reply | Permalink
Dijamo: I do see Mark's hypocrisy, loud and clear. But I am sad for Jenny and the boys, as in the same context, I was genuinely sad for Hillary and Chelsea. But you are right; this is not testosterone-driven; rather, it seems to me to be just driven by mean-spiritedness.
June 24, 2009 7:16 PM | Reply | Permalink
Who committed suicide? Who's whooping and hollering about that?
Do I bring up straw men arguments like that? No, ma'am, I do NOT.
I am not tolerant of vicious extremists like Mark Sanford. His state is SUFFERING for his political ambitions. How about addressing that crime, which is much more important, much more of a wide impact than this stupid affair? The schools that are going to close because of his politics? The children that will go hungry?
Mark Sanford is an incredibly bad person. His legacy is one of conservative destruction. That was established LONG BEFORE his hypocrisy. The affair only CONFIRMS it.
Defending this monster, when he's shown his true stripes? What's wrong with you, that you can't celebrate that somebody finally stopped this man, in a small way, and ended his career? That he will NOT be our President, or the leader of his party, or even serve another term as governor? That is a GOOD THING, if you're a reasonable, gentle, tolerant liberal, no matter how you slice it.
June 24, 2009 6:06 PM | Reply | Permalink
Please do show me where I have defended Mark Sanford. No where. Yet you say: "What's wrong with you, that you can't celebrate that somebody finally stopped this man, in a small way, and ended his career?"
The person who ended his career was he, himself. Does that grotesque fact make it right that his family suffer far more than he has done, to date or will in the future?
You are correct that Mark Sanford has been an enormous disappointment as a governor. I have been in the rural public schools, overwhelmed by mold, mildew and roaches. That he grandstanded, rejecting the stimulus money, made me sick at heart for the opportunities for improvement he rejected.
ETC., ETC..
None of those bad decisions, none of that grandstanding is reason to gloat, when a wife who gave her all -- and she did -- is left humiliated, a line item of collateral damage to his ambition to have it all.
The End.
June 24, 2009 6:41 PM | Reply | Permalink
Wendy,
I so agree with you. And what about the children? All should take a moment and consider them in this horrendous pile on.
It's fine with me to assert that Sanford is an ass, hypocrite and all around piece of crap. But to take glee in the destruction of a family and another public official who has disrespected himself, his family and constituents only exposes the lack of character in themselves. Those who do, their moral compass definitely needs to be recentered too. Better they take the time and energy to work towards something beneficial that will reap positive results instead of negative fallout.
I hear you Wendy. I have learned that casting stones is a precarious action and too oft done by those who dare not expose some of their own choices and behaviours.
I respect and admire your support and efforts. Somehow the focus of others here has become distorted and misdirected.
June 24, 2009 9:56 PM | Reply | Permalink
Here's something for your consideration:
In my original post, there was nothing about the family. Just the hypocrisy.
So where did I get my jollies about the pain the family is going through?
I am HAPPY that yet another liar Republican has had his balls snipped right off, and is practically powerless. And this was no flunky. It was a major player in the present-day Republican Party, one who had an inside track on his party's presidential nomination, one who positioned himself over and over to take that nomination.
I am rejoicing. This sideshow about the family? It's a personal objection from someone who coincidentally happens to know the family. That is too bad. But if you haven't learned by now from Talking Points Memo that politics is not for the weak at heart, then you never will.
June 24, 2009 10:47 PM | Reply | Permalink
Thank you, Aunt Sam. Your support means a lot. As does your sane analysis, on any issue.
June 25, 2009 7:54 PM | Reply | Permalink
Thank you, Aunt Sam. Your support means a lot. As does your sane analysis, on any issue.
June 25, 2009 7:54 PM | Reply | Permalink
I rejoice that this monster's career has been put on hold, for a permanent close coming at the end of his term. Perhaps, I pray, he will resign, but I like my life too much to hold my breath waiting for that.
Did his wife try to dissuade him from rejecting federal stimulus funds? Did she publicly disagree with him? Did she try to do the right thing, politically? Did she even try to talk him out of it in person, out of the limelight? Extremely unlikely.
As easy as it was for an objective viewer to predict he was having an affair instead of hiking on the Appalachian Trail, it's just as easy to predict that Jenny, your friend, was in on the crimes against the state of South Carolina. That she is just as conservative as he is and that she is and was just as concerned about keeping him in power as he was. She is no angel. She has made her bed, and now she has to lie in it, as my ex-mother-in-law used to say.
I'm sorry this has hurt YOU, too, but that's not my fault.
June 24, 2009 6:48 PM | Reply | Permalink
It is all about them for Republicans.
Pray that the delusional voters who have supported the GOP will finally wake up and realize that if these guys don't give a shit about their wives and their own family, they sure as hell don't care about the job or lack of one, the family, or the well being of the average citizen.
June 24, 2009 7:24 PM | Reply | Permalink
Thank goodness I'm confident you will be at the head of the line to condemn the dems who commit the same behaviors.
June 24, 2009 10:00 PM | Reply | Permalink
Well...you'll just have to wait and see, then, won't you?
Listen: If Vitter, Ensign, Craig, and every other major Republican had resigned when caught with their pants down, THEN AND ONLY THEN would I want Democrats to resign for the same or similar behavior. It's a matter of attrition, but it certainly favors the party that refuses to go along with it.
Fagetaboutit. Republicans don't do that. And until they do, I'll encourage every Democrat who's been unfaithful to his/her spouse to stay in office until legally removed. Like Blago was.
Otherwise, progressive values will suffer at the hands of major assholes like Sanford. He has, what, three more years of major trouble to brew? Unless his legislature can/will impeach/remove him? Something that seems, now that I think of it, pretty goddamned likely.
June 24, 2009 10:43 PM | Reply | Permalink
The Dem's don't pretend to be doing God's work on earth Aunt Sam.
June 24, 2009 10:54 PM | Reply | Permalink
I agree. That makes those who inject their sanctimonious piety while sheltering their own 'sins' are especially repugnant. I have nothing but disgust and disdain for Sanford on every level - his confession (?) was only forthcoming because he was caught, literally with his pants down - it was not out of any moral resurrection of conscience or for the cleansing of his 'soul'.
Thanks NCD.
June 24, 2009 11:19 PM | Reply | Permalink
Actually, to hear some of the comments on this board, it seems they think they are.
June 25, 2009 8:37 AM | Reply | Permalink
Daddy-O: you seem intent on condemning Jenny Sanford simply because, as a young and optimistic woman, she married Mark. Who among us knows the real negative potential of our mates, particularly if we marry at a relatively young age? And how in the world does the fact that she married him mean that she colluded with him in shortchanging the people of South Carolina?
Here are two links that should enable you to see Jenny as an individual as well as a political wife:
www.fitsnews.com/2008/10/.../dont-mess-with-jenny-sanford/ - Cached - Similar
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2009/06/24/jenny-sanfords-statement_n_220425.html
As to your supposition about my alleged lack of objectivity:
A) I know Jenny Sanford, but we are not personal friends. My positive opinion of her was formed when we worked together on a project. Ours was primarily a business relationship in a stress-fraught, deadline-driven cause, and I was really impressed by her thoughtful, calm, clear approach to problem-solving, as well as by her insistence that every problem was, in fact, an invitation to creative solution. She not only meant that, she demonstrated it.
B) I do have a personal relationship with her brother and his wife, one that is based in common interests and mutual friends. Because Jenny's brother and his wife are discreet people, my episodic insights into the Sanford household are derived from other, far less discreet neighbors and friends.
The End.
June 24, 2009 9:39 PM | Reply | Permalink
I'll give you this, Wendy (I hope that's your name, if I remember correctly). Perhaps my 'condemnation' of Jenny is more along the lines of 'defending' my original points in light of your attacks on them. That's cool.
I don't think I misrepresented the situation, but I of course could be dead wrong. But she has mislead the press and the public about his whereabouts. If she gave him an ultimatum, why didn't she out his adultery herself? I don't know, but it isn't really the honorable thing to do, if you ask me. These are very famous people we're talking about. When they act to protect their professional interests, I have to be skeptical.
But you don't. And there's where we part ways.
I'm truly sorry if I hurt your feelings. But this family was in for a world of hurt no matter WHAT my little reaction to this story would be. They already were; we just didn't know about it because they kept up the charade.
And as a person they were keeping in the dark, I just don't like that very much.
June 24, 2009 10:58 PM | Reply | Permalink
Daddy-O:
Thank you for your concern, but you did not hurt my feelings, rest assured. You did offend my sensibilities, but that is my problem in the end, not yours. That said, however, it sounds to me as if you have either never been married, or at least never divorced, or, if you've been divorced, that the split did not involve children.
Why? Because:
1)It is truly unthinkable, as you suggest, that Jenny Sanford, or any other mother of four children, would ever publicly blow the whistle on the full extent of her husband's transgressions. One of the inequities in a divorce for the custodial parent (usually the mother) is that she knows that she must keep her mouth firmly shut about her around her children, for the rest of her life... because badmouthing or publicly embarrassing their dad (now far more greatly missed by the children in his absence) is divorce sin #1 according to any family therapist.
2) There is not a divorce lawyer in the world who would advocate that a mother of four blow up her husband's livelihood by blowing the whistle on his affair, at least not until matters of child support are settled. No matter how hurt or angry she is, she must be civilized and agreeable throughout the negotiations, lest she offend her husband (there's an irony) who might then become vengeful and punish her by shortchanging the kids, aided and abetted by a judge who may well be censurous of a whistle-blowing mom and sympathetic to the husband's embarrassment. There is still a pronounced double standard in South Caroina along gender line(
So you see, D-O, that Jenny Sanford is not free of the restraints of propriety, not even separated, nor even in divorce, so long as she is the custodial parent. The well being of her own children must come first, before that of the constituents she has otherwise served, faithfully.
June 25, 2009 12:21 AM | Reply | Permalink
I have been 1) divorced, with my son in the middle; 2) re-married with a daughter; 3) enjoyed a collegial and equal partnership with my ex involving my son's upbringing until 4) she re-married and, thanks to her new husband's penchant for ultra-conservatism, started listening to Rush Limbaugh--and bad-mouthing me to my son. As a result, my son is estranged from me emotionally, and it's entirely out of my hands, in large part due to the New Republican.
So, while it turns out that you're wrong in your assumptions about me, but it returns to politics and objectivity.
I suggested that your acquaintance, Jenny, was more interested in preserving a gravy train of power and income than in 1) morality, 2) public service and 3) even her own children. Your pleas for her are not falling on deaf ears. But she is complicit in covering up his affair for the last five months, if not longer. We are relying on the word of utter hypocrites and proven liars for this information--making my skepticism far from 'juvenile or sophomoric'.
Finally, I have to say that it shocks me that, even in South Carolina, you or Jenny might think that a philandering father would have an advantage if the mother went public with his adultery sounds utterly ridiculous. Sure, nobody wants to prejudice a jury, but they are BOTH public figures. And it illustrates a point I've tried to make all day: Mark Sanford and his number one advisor, Jenny, have to decide who they're going to serve--the public, or themselves.
Today's information pretty much convinces me they BOTH decided to serve themselves, at the expense of their public vows. Or, at least, his.
June 25, 2009 2:01 AM | Reply | Permalink
One more thing: Jenny was his primary political advisor. She has a responsibility for every awful act he has done since she married him and they began working together.
She is not living in a vacuum in this story. She's in it up to her neck, and if that's bad taste to claim, so be it.
Thank you for your willingness to discuss this with me civilly. I admit my writing style isn't as civil as it could be, and side-by-side with yours, mine has more flavah than tact. That's how I work it.
June 25, 2009 2:12 AM | Reply | Permalink
Am I the only one who has found no evidence of hypocrisy in Sanford's transgression - yet?
He claimed that Bill Clinton's adultery had deprived Clinton of the moral authority to keep his office, and that he should resign.
If Mark Sanford, having decided that he has forfeited his moral authority, resigns his governorship, and spends the next part of his life trying to repair the damage he has inflicted on his family and others, I may still judge him to have behaved badly, but I will not call him a hypocrite.
June 24, 2009 10:05 PM | Reply | Permalink
Sure. Redemption is always a possibility. Ask George Wallace.
But the brand of Republican these days, after the last eight years? You'll have to excuse my skepticism.
And who could forget that he's been having this affair for five years? That's five years' worth of hypocrisy, that you seem to be conveniently forgetting, that has only stopped now because he's in the national spotlight. Five years of hypocrisy, while running for office, campaigning at churches and town halls, talking about family values, fundraising for OTHER Republican 'morals candidates', too, etc.
He's got a long road to redemption, if you ask me.
June 24, 2009 10:54 PM | Reply | Permalink
Josh has the link where as a member of Congress, Sanford voted to impeach Clinton.
He is a hypocrite, liar and a big time cross-equatorial adulterer.
June 24, 2009 10:57 PM | Reply | Permalink
He is a member of Promise Keepers and the C Street Group; both espouse family values. That is hypocrisy.
June 25, 2009 9:18 AM | Reply | Permalink
I had a friend whose husband was cheating on her. In fact out of the several people who knew about it I was the one who decided she had a right to know and I sat down with her and gave her the sad news. I was glad she was able to deal with that very common human predicament in relative privacy.
There are values I stand for above and beyond political gamesmanship. I would like to see Sanford treated the same way I wish Bill Clinton had been treated. Yes, its news and should be reported. But I see liberals circling the waters like sharks smelling blood, like republicans circled Clinton. That they did it to Clinton doesn't make it right. That Sanford is specifically hypocritical in this area also doesn't make it right. He and his family deserves a certain amount of privacy to deal with this.
I take no pleasure in the difficulties the Sanford family is now going through any more than I took pleasure in the difficulties I essentially began for my friend. I find the glee people are taking over this as inappropriate as I found the republican's glee over Clinton's infidelity. I especially find the prurient interest in the e-mails particularly appalling and no different than the prurient interest many took in the Starr report descriptions of Clinton's infidelity.
June 24, 2009 11:14 PM | Reply | Permalink
Thanks oceankat. On point and perfectly expressed.
June 24, 2009 11:23 PM | Reply | Permalink
Well...MY friend who cheated on his wife wasn't a flaming religious lying hypocrite. So, naturally, I didn't laugh out loud when he told me his story.
Does that explain the difference here? Or maybe I should dig up ten thousand YouTube videos of Mark Sanford preaching to his choir? Would that help?
My friend didn't lie to increase his standing in his profession. He didn't hide the affair to save his job; he lied to protect the feelings of his family. He got away with it, too, and it turned out to be a temporary marital glitch. They are still married today.
Personally, I couldn't do it. Guilt is against my religion, but I know already that the involuntary guilt I would feel is not worth any thrill. The main reason I would be able to be morally okay with someone else's infidelity is simple: The love is gone from the marriage. And sometimes, it returns.
June 25, 2009 2:08 AM | Reply | Permalink
Funny......
Given recent events, I would have to say that the people that marriage needs 'defending' from are those like Mark Sanford and his wife.
And the other hypocrites who achieve their personal esteem over having the gall to lecture others on how to live THEIR lives, but who mangle and butcher their own pathetic excuses for 'marriage'.
The Sanfords (both of them) can get back to me when their own lives are in some semblance of ethical or moral order.
Until then - they are getting PRECISELY what they deserve.
June 25, 2009 12:13 AM | Reply | Permalink
And we don't see anybody calling for a Constitutional amendment to protect marriage from adulterers like Sanford. When we do...then MAYBE I won't be able to call them hypocrites.
Jeez. Defending the obvious. What a thankless job.
June 25, 2009 4:27 PM | Reply | Permalink
Sorry, I just can't get overly enthused about this.
The truth is, he's not very powerful if he can go AWOL for a few days and the state's business goes on without him.
Over-inflated self-importance makes for an over-inflated story, I guess.
But in reality, it changes nothing about the political dynamics in this country.
June 25, 2009 3:18 AM | Reply | Permalink
Uh...it is yet one more reality-based bit of evidence concerning the political dynamics of this country, inasfar as the collapse of the Republican Party continues.
Enthused? No? Okay. I am. Another Christian Soldier bites the dust. Funny thing: Jesus hated hypocrites as much as he hated scribes and Pharisees. How many times did this asshat go against Jesus's overt commands to NOT pray in public and receiving his reward directly?
Whatever floats yer boat.
June 25, 2009 4:05 PM | Reply | Permalink
One more thought:
Anybody care to say or just think what Joshua Micah Marshall's reaction was when he heard this story?
I'll tell you what I think it was: Identical to mine, except he didn't post the 'ha ha ha ha's. But I'll bet he had himself one helluva belly laugh. I know I did.
Sophie Tucker said it best: If they can't take a joke, FUCK 'EM.
June 25, 2009 4:25 PM | Reply | Permalink
The blog was fine. It is kind of funny for a self-righteous asshole to be hoisted on his own petard, no matter what party they claim to represent. It was your repeated justification for your glee that took this out of the joke realm and into serious discussion territory.
June 25, 2009 4:45 PM | Reply | Permalink
Sophie Tucker? Are you SURE you are only 52?
June 25, 2009 5:10 PM | Reply | Permalink