Wednesday, June 24, 2009

Governor Mark Sanford: 5 Days Crying in Argentina

I guess we have new code words for getting some nooky on the side: “Hiking the Appalachian Trail.”

Governor Mark Sanford has now owned up to what we all suspected, that his clandestine foray to Buenos Aires this week was in fact a close encounter of the sexual kind with an Argentinean hottie.

And another Republican Evangelical has fallen into the loving arms of Satan.

And again, I am going to bet that there will be those out there screaming for him to resign as governor of South Carolina, a Bible Belt state like no other (well, second to Texas, anyway) just because he was doing the nasty with a woman not his wife.

His new cover story, now, is that he went down there to break it off with the woman, a friend of his for over 8 years, and a lover for the last one of those. “I spent the last 5 days crying in Argentina,” declared Mark Sanford before a crowd of reporters and staff.

5 days?

My guess is that the break off occurred as he was talking to the reporters, not before.

But back to the main thesis. People are going to demand his resignation for schtupping the Argentinean lady. Mainly, I think, because Republicans claim to have high moral standards and hold everyone up to them whether they, themselves, can live up to them -or not.

Republicans, however, are subject to the same human frailties as anyone else. Resigning over something that should be considered a natural act is the utmost in stupidity.

And to his credit he’s not resigning - - - yet. He’s resigning his leadership role in the Republican Governor’s Association, but that is it. But the dice are still tumbling, I think, so we will see whether he actually does resign sometime in the near future.

I think he should resign, but not for cheating on his wife. He should resign because of malfeasance in office. Think of it. He lies to his staff about where he is going, then disappears for 5 days. He left no contingency plans if something should go amiss in his absence. The man totally gave in to his own selfishness and left his state with no one at the helm.

This man makes poor choices. But he should not resign because he chose to be with another woman instead of his wife. That is, unfortunately, a common human frailty. But because he traded the safety of his state for a chance at a sexual encounter, he does not deserve to lead it.

But speaking of crying, and speaking of Argentina, what about this as a “swan song” for the good ol’ Governor of South Carolina?

UPDATE: It seems that the press has been monitoring the movements of Governor Sanford for some time now. The people at "The State" the main paper media outlet in South Carolina's capitol city of Columbia, have been reading email exchanges between Sanford and his Argentinean amour, Maria, for a while now.

They post excerpts from them here.

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

On this, we agree.

His personal choices are his and I don't really care who he sleeps with.

He can serve as governor as long as the people of South Carolina want him (I believe he's term limited).

But I think he should resign two reasons:

1) For the risk that irresponsibly leaving potentially subjected his state to.

2) For lying about where he was.

And potentially a third reason (if it materializes)...if he used even one cent of public money to help carry out or cover up his fling with the South American.

Anonymous said...

Well Governor Sanford, what happened to "not" taking the Stimulus Package due to being so fiscally responsible and committed in some sort of pretense, nonsensical high road of not wanting to burden your State with "future" debt yet your people were in need and suffered mightily in the "present" tense?

Go figure, Sanford’s supposed high and mighty denouncement of irresponsibleness of Obama’s Stimulus Package led him to snub this needed stimulus money for recovery in his state, but yet he can irresponsibly abandons his post as leader-in-chief of his state and goes missing for 5 days in pursuit of an erotic experience with his mistress. His ultimate hypocrisy is what bothers me.

Do not play God and/or "Super Human" while pointing the finger at the rest of us regular humans, and then go do what some of us regular humans would "not" do or would not stand on a soap box proclaiming how holy than thou and real American "we are", while simultaneously, denouncing the rest of as riffraff.