Sanford and Sin

Who knew that the Republican presidential primary candidates would already start getting winnowed in 2009?

It's beginning to look as though the question is no longer who's sinning in the GOP. It's who is not. Mark Sanford's disclosure that he's been having a long distance relationship with an Argentine flame cannot possibly be the final revelation of pulchritudinously roving eyes in the Republican ranks. The summer is too young, the temptations overwhelming.

The press conference this afternoon wasn't about Sanford and son, but Sanford and sin. The person most stunned by Sanford's meandering remarks was probably Sen. John Ensign, who's been hoping that the whole subject of adultery will just go away. But it clearly won't, at least as long as the GOP depicts itself as, on the one hand, a bastion of morals, and keeps getting singed by its peccadilloes, on the other.

The blow to the GOP should not be underestimated. Sanford was hailed in the Weekly Standard and other conservative publications. Sanford was supposed to be a promising candidate for 2012, but he couldn't keep his most basic promise to his wife.

Enough. Sanford will presumably disappear, but the contradictions he embodies won't. The GOP is starting to look like a collection of Reverend Arthur Dimmesdale's out of Hawthorne's The Scarlet Letter. It's fidelity to principle, you could say, is making it look unprincipled.

Comments

[superstition]

"A smart Senate and House leader would immediately bring up for a vote the repeal of DOMA while the Republicans are reeling from their second (adultery) eruption in a week.

Let the Republicans start talking about the protection of traditional marriage. Just let them. If anything, the DOMA repeal FORCES the entire country to keep talking about the ongoing GOP sex scandals."

-- John Aravosis

Seriously, if the Dems let both of these scandals go, they're betraying their LGBT constituents even more than usual. Both of these guys lobbied against our monogamous marriages. It's time to stop being scared of Republicans and start having some backbone.

[blindhog]

What took the cake for me today was to hear that the governor said he used HIS money to pay for the trip. HIS MONEY!!!!!­!!!???????­??

Unless South Carolina is not similar to other states in the union, the money is the family's money. Basically he stole from his wife and sons to have this illicit affair!

The nation and courts need to realize that a man who cheats on his wife, particularly a stay-at-home wife of many years, NEED TO REALIZE THAT that man is committing a FELONY on his family. If there is a divorce, the wife has used up her chance to develop a career (how many are clamoring for 50 year old plus housewives to run their corporations?). She is forced to use the family's finances to get a separate place or to pay for the expenses of a house too big for her pocketbook­---therefo­re leaving little to help their shared children!!!!!

Many states (Illinois, for example, with their QUILDRO) even allow the new wife to inherit all pension-death related rights, even if the errant husband was only married to his former mistress for only the last year of his working life. How do I know? If my ex dies, I will have to go back to court to TRY to fight to get justice for myself and our children.

[BarryChamplain]

Why do progressives (like you, JH) buy-into the MSM/GOP narrative that it's somehow a legitimate, burning question, as to who will be the GOP's next Great White Hope?

Is this even relevant? Yeah, if you're THEM.

The underlying meme from the nation's sterling "journalists" always seems to be the perpetual search for relief: "When will we FINALLY be able to return to Republican rule, and things in America can again be as The Lord intended?"

You're playing-into that. WHO CARES if they find a candidate for 2012, who can again make Wall Street feel warm and secure, and still bamboozle the lumpen into thinking he stands for enough of what they do, that they'd like to have a beer with him?

I DON'T WANT THAT. Do YOU? Fine. Then please... cool it with the breathless speculation, as to whether or not these bastards will rise again.

[graylobo]

Dear Governor Samford,

If you want to save your political career, switch parties. You will be their hero and fit in perfectly.

[JuliaRain]

F ox already did that for him. Didn't work.

[jcwtts1]

no no no, he won't because he preaches morality while knowing it is a false posture. We are buck wild in the Dems but we aren't hypocrites. That would you guys.

J

[Militant Leftist]

Meanwhile, back in the world of reality (where cons struggle a great deal)......Given this is a reoccurring theme for the GOP, it is apparent he is already where he belongs.

[bayside]

I think people are missing the picture here. We had a sec., who worked for us, that took 17.000 of our money, for her own personal use ,and we called the police ....It is called stealing..You cannot steal from your employer, for your girlfriends or to go to see your girlfriends..

[mamacat]

Do the Republicans know the meaning of the word Hypocrisy? If not, would someone please show them how to look it up?

[WilliamBradford]

Sanford is not necessarily a hypocrite. He certainly is a pitifully weak, self-indulgent liar.

It requires adult thinking, but the reality is that we are all hypocrites to some degree - that is what makes us noble creatures. We aspire to be more than we are. We believe in ideas even if they are impractical or seemingly impossible to realize. We fall short of our potential as individuals and as a society. We are humans - we can envision conditions of life that do no exist and then pursue them.

Sanford was not a preacher. He did not lecture anyone. He claimed to believe that "values" were important and that they should be part of our political debate. He may still believe this. By the standards that he set, he is a complete failure and a fool. His weakness has cost him everything.

Just because a person does not live up to the aspirations that he has for himself and for others does not mean that those beliefs were faulty or even that he has lost that belief.

[NotProvenGuilty]

Those who are trying to be kind to Sanford here I think miss a crucial point. Infidelity in and of itself is more problematic for most conservative politicians because most conservative politicians are so intolerant of "moral" or lifestyle choices they happen to disagree with (abortion, gay marriage, infidelity, etc). The question becomes, why does someone so intolerant deserve tolerance? Liberals tend to have a "live and let live" attitude, so at least they can legitimately say, "hey, I would have let this slide if you did it, why can't you do so with me?" Most conservatives simply can't say that. If they try, they can and are fairly called hypocrites. The golden rule is brilliant. But a corollary i believe in is treat people as they treat you. I'm tired of people getting away with crapping on other people and then expecting people to be nice to them. And I think a lot of the public is, too.

[Checquoline]

I think it is called "overcompensation". Someone who preaches absolute righteousness just HAS to do the opposite. But I want to hear from the zealots who voted these idiots in office. What do they think now?

[frynpan]

Notprovenguilty, you are spot on! I am usually pretty forgiving, but am sick and tired of the Mark Sanfords of the world, preaching to everyone else about morals, and then crying and praying for forgiveness when they screw up. I hope this stays in the media for awhile. What goes around should come around and maybe the whole morality rah, rah, crowd will just shut up. They will no that if you go around condeming other people for their transgressions it will come back to you 100 fold when you screw up.

[4State]

Just two months ago, Newsweek called Sanford "the last of the true believers":

http://www.newsweek.com/id/195088?from=rss

"..even true believers have bad days, and at this particularly stressful hour, it doesn't take much to set Sanford off. In the halls of the State House, legislators accuse the governor of selling out the poorest South Carolinians to feed his own ambition; outside, his approval ratings have fallen to 40 percent. Asked how this makes him feel, Sanford pauses, then admits to experiencing the "occasional lonely moment."

""He is the candidate Rush Limbaugh and countless others who embrace the cause of shrinking government have been waiting for," writes conservative journalist Reihan Salam: more Barry Goldwater than George W. Bush. A savvy salesman, Sanford clearly recognizes the appeal of immoderation. "What I believe I truly believe," he boasts. "I can't do the flavor-of-the-month approach"'.

Well at least we can give him that; faithfulness to his mistress.

How hard the high and mighty hypocrites do fall.

[LiarLiarIraqsOnFire]

He cried in that interview too. I wonder if it was because he was truly being considered as a future Presidential contender and he knew he was going to be brought low by this.

[OneTop]

I think it's the PTL / Tammy Faye Bakker thing ?

[kaib57]

Two things: First, people are human and sometimes find themselves with feelings they never intended to have for people they never intended to have them for. Frankly it should be nobody's business except his wife's but for the fact that (like most Republicans) he held himself up on some moral highground and persecuted Bill Clinton for the same thing. What I DO think people should hold him responsible for is his total lack of judgment as the Governor by going completely incommunicado. Totally irresponsible.

Secondly, most mature adults know that a relationship between a husband and wife is totally different from their roles as parents. How many divorcing spouses have told their children that the divorce does not alter the love either parent has for them? So while I can understand Sanford's wife kicking him out for his affair, I find it appalling that she did not allow him to contact his children. For all her statements about putting her sons first, I think she let her hurt and anger as a wife overshadow what was really best for her sons in maintaining a relationship with their father.

[nk007]

For Republicans who were so high and mighty when prosecuting Clinton, and preaching moral values, the "chickens have come home to roost."

[DesertRat09]

Sanford has hung himself, no question.

However, it was not the infidelity that upset people about Clinton. It was the fact that he was caught, then got on national TV and flatly denied it to all of us. Once he did that, he in essence invited an investigation. My personal belief is had he admitted it up front, as did Sanford, that it would have blown over pretty quickly. We are all human, and prone to making human mistakes. But to hold a national prime time press conference and tell us straight to our faces that it was untrue, only to be undone by the facts.....­.well.....­that is how you lose trust.

[charmedgreenquark]

Speaking of prosecution.......
Will CAPT Mark Sanford of the 315th Airlift Wing (he's an Air Force Reservist) be prosecuted in accordance with the Uniform Code of Military Justice? Adultery is supposed to be prosecuted in the military. Email [e-mail] and ask them?

[SPQR1775]

George Bush created NO CHILD LEFT BEHIND, he forgot to pass it to SANFORD, who run off to ARGENTINA and left his FOUR CHILDREN BEHIND. Oh, how marvelous is the HYPOCRICY of the "God Oracle Party", I guess the party of slavery, white sheets, misery, bigotry, WARS (send ur kids to WAR Republicans-then u woun't start any). John McCain, Sanford, Guilliani, Vitter, Gingrich, and the list goes on Ensign and allot more. The GOP bring down NY Governor for this, impeach Clinton, and they are allot worst. Oh, the emperor has no clothes indeed. THE GOP can't be serious about winning seats in 2010. The DEMOCRATS just need to run on "STANDARDS, NO COMPROMISE"...the GOP already compromise all their rethoric so loosing is easy. I see a DEMOCRATIC LANDSLIDE IN 2010-248

[DEJM]

Neither party has cornered the market on self-destructive behavior.

Rather than look at the party affiliation, perhaps we should be looking at what happens to people when they achieve powerful positions in life.

Perhaps they serve as an example to the rest of us, of how one person, seeking to indulge himself,
causes so much collateral damage.

[wehrke]

Family values are something Republicans AND Democrats should be promoting. This isn't moralizing or christian bible thumping. We should all be upset about absentee fathers, one parent households, etc. Children do better when raised in two parent households. This should be an issue we are all concerned about!

Sanford's behavior deserves criticism, but we should not be ridiculing politicians that support strong families and responsibility. Obama is the best example of this. He understands the value of family.

[ljrabq]

Are you kidding? The GOP is the party that trumpets "family values" above all else, so it very much IS a public matter. Plus, going to see his mistress on the government's dime (plus the computers/e-mails, et al) makes it public matter. He was one of the pious GOP'ers who impeached President Clinton, so PLEASE... If one can't see the hypocrisy then you seriously need something stronger than what you're currently medicating with.

[savannahdem]

I teach Information Technology and in particular, Information Security at our local state university. If the e-mails Sanford sent to his mistress in Argentina were indeed sent from his state-supplied computer, using his government e-mail address, that would be grounds for firing in the private sector where Sanford originally came from. It probably would violate Acceptable Use Policies for that state of SC, too.

[cupcake65]

People, people! The GOP has no more part in this story than the Dems had in the Spitzer affair. The failure falls directly on the shoulders of Gov. Sanford and nowhere else.

[Gasparilla]

You fail to grasp the concept. It's the Republicans who portray themselves as the goody two shoes party. Better than the Democrats, who also fail, but are less judgemental.

[StrengthofLenin]

Oh really....wasn't Spitzer an anti-prostitution crusader? That's pretty goody two shoes!

[Schaef]

Really? I wonder, then, what you think of your own post, or the countless others like it, or the article it is tied to, or the site on which the article appears. Not to mention Pelosi dumping countless ethics charges on Gingrich to force him out, and brandishing all this hoo-haw about transparency and ethical governance.

Congratulations on proclaiming yourself less judgemental.

And FWIW, the GOP is no less eager to eat its own than to come after "the other guy". See also: Larry Craig, Robert Livingston.

[darker]

Yes, The REPUBLICAN bastion of MORALS has turned into
a parade of sex, lies, and peccadilloes up the whazoo.

Republicans are talented at smearing Dems and others while
EXCUSING THEMSELVES from their own MORALS LIST that
they do not adhere to.

Hypocrisy = Republicans.

[jsgaetano]

Conservative values are destroying the sanctity of my marriage.

[Zyzzygowski]

No. It's the Gays. Th Gays are destroying marriage, or didn't you know. Ask Carrie Prejean.

This is why we can't allow the Gays to marry. If any more States approve Gay marriage, the only consequence is that more people will end up being adulterous. Stop the Gays and it will save marriage. Don't you get it? LOL.

[jsgaetano]

Oh, I see now, it's all clear new. If there weren't gays, good conservatives like Ensign and Sanford wouldn't cheat on their wives!