What Mark Sanford did (wrecked our priorities)
We all know politicians are narcissists who very often cheat on their wives (Clinton, Edwards, Ensign and, now, Sanford… among scores of others). We also know that the myriad hypocrites on both sides of the political ledger try to make hay out of this for their own brain dead ideological reasons. (Some boring dork on MSNBC is blathering on right now about the “GOP Brand, etc.,” as if Edwards and Clinton were good for the Democratic Brand – unless that brand is serial adultery.)
Nevertheless, Mark Sanford’s out-of-control Father’s Day jaunt to Buenos Aires is particularly ill-timed, not just because of the obvious disrespect to his wife, children, friends, citizens of his state, political party, etc.
Reason: IRAN.
At this moment, the eyes of this country should be fixed on the horrific events coming from that company and the struggle for freedom against all odds by many of its brave citizens. They need our support more than anything. Instead – and it doesn’t take Nostradamus to predict this – our cable networks will be treating us to wall-to-wall Argentinean hanky-panky cum gubernatorial soap opera when an historical event of titanic proportions is taking place. Well, that’s testosterone. We’ll see how our media does in keeping a decent focus.
UPDATE: Sanford was in Buenos Aires for a week; the same week Iran was in ferment, demonstrators being beaten in the streets. It’s kind of like Hiroshima, Mon Amour in reverse. The Anchoress has more
MORE: If you’re looking to do more about Iran, you can protest Nokia’s giving advanced Internet monitoring equipment to the Islamic Republic here.
Mark
amen, and i would add that the obsession with john and kate plus 8 and alot of similar stuff is a sign of what an unserious culture we are.
i remember a classic onion article just after 9-11, which said something like “a weary nation longs to care about stupid shit again.” they had a great graphic featuring gary condit, a shark, britney spears and a bunch of other stupid crap that used to seem to matter until reality crashed in. and where are we 8 years later? A regime that has threatened holocaust to both isreal and the US, that is trying to get the means to carry through on its words, might fall to rebellion. and we are obsessing with that idiot governor.
Not only is this going to take the news off Iran, it also shoots down Sanford’s great work in cutting down the size of SC’s government. He no longer has any credibility. It’s been an uphill battle in our state for years and Sanford was doing a bang up job. All for nothing now — how very sad.
Mark Sanford’s misbehavior is a godsend to Barack Obama. The embattled president must feel like he just won the lottery. As of yesterday, I am convinced that Obama’s effectiveness as leader of the country is over. He will unlikely get any of his major domestic bills through Congress. Obama is probably still irreversibly damaged goods—but he gets a little more breathing room. Many people are indifferent toward important matters. Sex scandals unfortunately grab their attention.
Why did he go overseas to find a woman? Hope she doesn’t turn out to be 13 years old….
1) They said he was lost on the Appalachian Trail when in fact he was lost in some Argentine Tail.
2) Where are the pics of the little whore he was with? Inquiring minds want to oggle.
3) Is there a love child involved?
Despicable. And Roger’s right ~ this gives our miserable, mealy-mouthed, squeamish Precedent a free pass while the world burns.
DesPICable.
I could cry.
Governor Sanford was probably spending stimulus money (joke).
No question his judgment is poor and he doesn’t deserve high political office. GOP will take care of him.
If only Nazi press would hold Democrats even 1/2 responsible for their actions.
Where is ACCOUNTABILITY on the part of DEMOCRATS? E.g. ethics investigations on Dodd, Frank, Pelosi, and even Obama?
Vote Independent, Vote Republican, anything but Democrat in next election – clean house, but don’t commit hari kari (more correctly harakiri).
Why the f*** can’t these people wait until they are OUT OF OFFICE before having an affair?
Is that really so hard?
When I was a kid I was shocked to discover that my father, an educated guy that read the paper every day, did not know who Rachel Welch was. Now that I am older I understand; Ms. Welch, lovely as she was (and no doubt still is, at 68) had no significance to his world, or the world at large, as he saw it. So it should be with all this chaff the mainstream media puts out. It’s just a variation on bread and circuses, distractions from what’s really important- the society our children will inherit.
I am so sick of this. Bottom line – if you are a conservative holding office and you are having an affair, end it now, announce it and get out of here – we can’t keep having this. I know all about the double standard – well, face it, it exists and there is very little we can do. But, this is too much. He has to resign to stop the chatter. Onece SPitzer resigned – the news stopped… let me repeat – he much resign
This story just backs up what I taught my sons all those years ago – “Every man has two heads. You’re bound to end up in trouble if you go through life thinking with the small one.”
Think carefully, now. In all honesty, what’s going on here — and what Simon says — is exactly the purpose of the media’s initial stories here.
They know very well Sanford’s affair all by itself isn’t going to change anyone’s mind on anything important, I mean, not if that person has much of a mind to begin with. Is anybody going to embrace Obamacare because that darned Sanford had an affair? Or going to give more or less of a damn about the President’s dickless reaction to Iran? Ha ha no way.
HOWEVER, if the Republicans and their supporters and associates form up a circular firing squad and fall into an orgy of self-loathing and recrimination, that will totally destroy their effectiveness in opposition to Team Obama and his media whores. Take them totally off message. It will be like Abu Ghraib all over again.
The correct response is to shrug and say this all sucks for Sanford and his wife, but marital infidelity is (1) a private matter within the family — or does the Left no longer believe in keeping politics out of the bedroom? and (2) personal failures on the parts of messengers don’t say anything about the message, and (3) can we get back to important stuff now, please?
Look, if the Democrats can trot out Barney Frank, with a history of buggering Congressional pages, or Ted Kennedy, with a history of allowing young women to drown and neglecting to tell anyone about it, as their point-men on highly ethical issues like healthcare or regulation of the finance sector, then it can obviously be done.
Shut up about Sanford now. Enough people have said that was really stupid, you schmuck. Resist the urge to say yeah me too. Get back onto the stuff that matters. Obama has been a total mealy-mouthed stoneless loser on Iran, shamefully betraying the values for which America supposedly stands. His mullah fellating is far worse than anything Cowboy George ever did, who never snuggled up evil men who would shoot innocent girls through the heart and let ‘em die in the street.
I should point one more thing out: what are the chances that the media DIDN’T know about Sanford’s affair long ago? Zero. Why do you think they pressed so hard to know where he was in the last few days? Is that pure accident? At this very moment, I would be surprised if here aren’t one or two governors, out of 50, who are a bit AWOL. Why don’t we get national AP stories about them?
Because the media is not trying to squeeze out a scandal, that’s why. They knew about this affair long ago, and just kept it on ice until they needed a useful distraction to prop up their man in the White House.
Remember that. Don’t let your strings be pulled, like they’re trying to pull ‘em right now.
Stanford is stupid to have done this, and he’s hurt the GOP in his state. But you can’t blame him for distracting the nation from Iran. That is the fault of the prurient and unprincipled media and the American sheep who continue to watch and read it.
Sanford had a shot at the presidential nomination. Not any more, the dumb schmuck.
I see this as a disqualifying lack of self control.
This is a perfect example of how the media manipulate us. The MSM has been looking to minimize the Iran and North Korea stories – and that idiot Sanford gave them the tools. Don’t Republican politician’s understand that they are held to a higher standard?
“Don’t Republican politician’s understand that they are held to a higher standard?”
My left-wing home paper the Houston Chronicle is already highlighting the story concerning Mark Sanford. It is ignoring the Iranian crisis and Warren Buffet’s severe criticism of the cap and trade legislation.
I am sad for his family. I voted for him and am extremely disappointed.
However, I don’t think he was presidential material, with or without an affair. Still, he’d be better than what we’ve got.
I guess this confirms that the media believes a Republican penis is a bigger story than nearly anything else. I’ll be telling my liberal friends this.
WEll, as a married woman of 45 yrs. with NO affairs that I know of, I honestly do not care what Gov. Sanford does. That is entirely between him and his wife. I am just so sorry that this story is now in the news with NO mention of Bill Cinton and John Edwards! Where on earth are the Republicans with this??? It is all extremely sad to me that there are no Republicans mentioning anything!!!!
I wonder what he’s going to do with the rest of his life. Not that I really give a bowel evacuation.
It is amusing listening to Republicans trying to bob and weave their way out of this one. Let me see if I’ve got this right:
-Sanford had an affair but we shouldn’t care because he’s a Republican
-Sanford had an affair but that’s okay because Democrats have had affairs in the past
-this is going to let Obama off doing whatever evil things he’s doing because apparently he has something to do with this
-it’s all Obama’s fault anyway
Life in the minority, eh?
Honestly, I don’t think most people outside of Stanford’s state will care that much. For the very reason discussed, we got a lot more to think about right now.
Really this is about more than just an affair. He went AWOL over this, and a Governor of a state can’t just go AWOL and be considered to be responsibly executing his fundamental duties. Is this a national-level story deserving of huge attention? Not really, but it certainly deserves national notice that a Governor in a state has shown himself unfit for the position. But it is a huge S.C. story (or at least should be) and certainly shows that this isn’t a person responsible enough to be President. Not because of the affair per se, but because of the things he was willing to risk and abandon in pursuit of the affair.
I think the republican response should be more on the lines of “This ruins the viability of a single politician. It is a shame that such talent is wasted, but the Republican message is bigger than one flawed messenger, and given the current events in Iran and the large cost of the legislation currently being proposed by the Democrats, the nation should focus on larger issues that just South Carolina.”
And Sanford should resign. His actions showed him unqualified to be Governor in their own right, and at least he can do some damage control for his party.
2 points to make:
1) This is news because of the hypocrisy involved here. Republicans tell you how to live their lives, what marriage is, what women should do with their bodies etc. and are supposedly the party of family values and that facade is coming apart now. Dorks like you can’t seem to understand that.
This is not just an affair, I think he is genuinely in love with this Maria. He gave up his wife, kids, reputation, and possible chance at the 2012 nomination for her. He needs to resign his governorship because he abandoned his post. If Maria is the love of his live, why not get a divorce and marry her?
Roger 28, the blogger here – me – happens to be pro gay marriage unlike our President. So enough sanctimony. . As for hypocrisy there’s plenty to go around. Clinton still doesn’t admit to having head sex with Monica. They’re all jerks on both sides. Grow up.
I think he was on http://www.dirtyspouses.com
Robert Zimmerman is on Lou Dobbs right now chorteling about “the hypocrisy of the Right wing”. It is the same on Chris Matthews.
Thanks alot Sandford. Conservative arguments were gaining a hearing on healthcare and Iran. Now, blown off the pages.
As a Conservative who now has to hear the likes of Joy Behar brey about right wing hypocrits I beg you, Govenor, for the sake of all that is decent – put a bullet through your head.
Illinois had a governor who was AWOL for four years. Then we reelected him, then we impeached him when he finally looked like he might do something.
Another defender of “traditional” marriage can’t live up to their own vows, but has the audacity to proclaim that other couples (who are obviously in a better, more redeeming relationship) cannot.
Sweet, sweet schadenfreude. HA!
Absolutely pathetic…
Republicans preach about family values, morals and ethics, and they constantly pull hypocritical stunts and then forfeit any kind of legitamacy as a moral compass for the nation.
We have come to expect this from the likes of Barney Frank (pages),ted Kennedy, Clinton etc..
Now, these skunks are all of the same stripe.
I recently re-registered as an independent.
from republican.,
I have had it with these buffoons.
Will some one of integrity,guts, and courage please step forward and lead this Great Nation before we go to hell in a handbasket with this current crop of pathetic politicnas on both sides of the aisle?
Are there ANY adults left in public office?
Term Limits for all of them. We need some fresh blood.
Carl is right. Whenever a politician screws up his or her personal life, it’s the only thing anyone talks about for the next week, *if* that politician is a Republican.
The only way such a thing can “wreck our priorities” is if everyone stops talking about everything else so they can dissect one (Republican!) politician’s personal life in nauseating detail. Stop doing this to yourselves and the tactic will no longer be effective.
And this is the last thing I will say, publicly or privately, about Mark Sanford’s personal life. People are being murdered en masse in Iraq, the mainstream press is blatantly currying favor, mandatory Federal surveillance of medical treatment is rushing to completion, and I don’t care about Mark Sanford’s personal life. Jesus.
When a Republican has to choose between the sanctity of marriage and his gubernatorial duties versus hot sex and the tango, always bet on the sex and the dance! This is utterly falling-down funny!
Wow, SUCH a pity-party! “There’s REAL news to be concerned about in Iran, etc.” from the people who held 140 hours of hearings over Bill Clinton’s Christmas card list. And hearings about this, that, and every other bit of trivia–I know people who are still obsessed with Whitewater and Vince Foster’s “murder”. And “the press” and “the public” didn’t talk about the infidelities of Eliot Spitzer “ad nauseum”, forEVER?
Spitzer went after “immorality” and deserved to get nailed as a hypocrite. And so has just about every Republican caught with his pants down. The sorry lot of them, a parade of them since the Clinton impeachment starting with Gingrich himself, have to a man been quoted in castigating Clinton for sullying the Morals of America. Glass houses. Jeez–it’s like my “libertarian” friends, all of whom are HUGE welfare queens in their own ways!
Oh hey, here’s a shout-out to the woman who is 45 and has “no affairs that (she) knows of”. What, does she think someone hypnotizes her and takes advantage of her? You folks are really pretty paranoid, wow!
Don’t cry for him, Argentina.
This is a day or two story at most. He tried to reign in government spending and so this is a loss to that perspective at a time when it’s needed. But he isn’t really that important in the big picture.
Great article! The MSM really is having fun dragging poor Sanford through the mud while Rome burns. Sigh.
It’s days like this make me appreciate all of you in the “New Media” even more.
Carl Pham writes:
“Democrats can trot out Barney Frank, with a history of buggering Congressional pages”
I wish you reactionaries would just get your facts straight for once: Barney Frank does not have a history of buggering congressional pages. He has a history of writing letters on congressional stationery to probation officers in support of a male prostitute whose services Frank had employed. Oh, he also used his office to fix 33 traffic tickets for the guy. Oh, and as that noted right wing rag, the New York Times, reported on August 26, 1989, “Representative Barney Frank of Massachusetts said today that without his knowledge a male prostitute he had hired to do personal errands had run a prostitution service from the Congressman’s Washington apartment. . . Mr. Frank, who made his homosexuality public in May 1987, said he had paid for sex with the prostitute one time, in the spring of 1985, and had hired him as a personal employee later that year because he thought he could encourage the man to ”change his life.”” (As it happens, I’m presently considering hiring a couple of 18 year old hookers as “personal employees” so they can do some “personal errands” for me. I’m betting it changes their lives!!)
And anyway, it was Gerry Studds, Frank’s Democrat predecessor in his congressional district, who had a history of buggering a 17-year old male congressional page. And to be fair, it may not have been buggery. Rep. Studds may just have given the boy a Lewinsky.
“This is a day or two story at most.”
The Sanford story will blow over before the end of tomorrow. Iran and the economy are deemed more important by the general public. Obama is similar to the guy who won $10,000 in the lottery—but not the one who won $150,000,000! He will still remain politically impotent. Obama’s presidency may be effectively over and he has been in office only a little more then five months.
1. It is pure B.S. to say that Sanford had a shot at the presidency before this. That’s another MSM lie; remember that it was the MSM who insisted that Republicans wanted Maverick John McCain for president.
2. Now WOULD be a good time for all elected officials who are unfaithful (to whatever vow they claim to esteem most highly) to make a graceful exit. Just make up an excuse, ok. But go, and go now. Or you will be tried by fire. And it hurts, and it burns all those around you.
3. The GOP must establish a baseline for what it believes and wants to promote. And those crappy questionnaires that Congress critters mail out as a ruse for fund-raising won’t work. Half of the Republicans I know won’t donate any money at the national level because they abhor and despise the endless phone calls and begging letters. There has to be a better way.
4. No matter what, the national news media will never respect the GOP and its voters. Get over it. Why would you expect respect from whores and deviants anyway?
25. Jack writes:
“It is amusing listening to Republicans trying to bob and weave their way out of this one.”
I am sure you must be loving this but, to be honest, there’s not a lot of heavyweight conservative punditry who are not spewing the crap you assert. But there is a lot of gnashing of teeth because this kind of behavior — like Ensign’s — is a big setback that causes the Republicans to forfeit the moral high ground.
..kinda the opposite of the Democtrats — particularly, the Alleged Hawaiian and his phalanx of tax-avoiding cabinet members, Edwards and his sweetie and their love-child, the cigar-wielding former Serial First Philanderer, and Bawney Fwank, gay bathouse madame — all of whom, excuse the expression, blew right by their transgressions without so much as a hitch in their gitalong nor a murmer from a supplicant press.
Besides, aren’t you the guys who keep telling us that this crap doesn’t really matter?
43. David Thomson writes:
“The Sanford story will blow over before the end of tomorrow. Iran and the economy are deemed more important by the general public.”
I believe your assertion to be correct David.
But this would be a delicious litmus test of how the SOM (State-Owned Media) is in the bag for the left. Iranians getting clocked by the scores in the streets of Tehran and O-Bomb-a-Care is tanking despite a MSM March-of-Dimes Telethon from the bouffant droolers and blow-dried tinglers at ABC, and the Sanford-on-the-Pampas story is page one for a week.
Freaking typical.
At first blush last night, Roger, I wholeheartedly agreed with this post. How dare this Sanford affair to distract us from the more meaty affairs of state and other states (Iran)? But after a good night’s sleep, I’ve reconsidered it and may have to disagree a bit. What if the breakdown of the moral fabric in our sophisticated, high-tech society threatens our way of life even more than the threat of terrorism and the abysmal condition of the economy? Sure men have always had dalliances. But to the extent we’re seeing today?
It seems we’re always the last to know.
“coming from that company”
company: I do not think that word means what you think it does.
Salaryman,
Gerry Studds was not in Bwarny Fwanks district. Studds represented New Bedford. One of the reasons Sutdds ‘got off’ on raping the young man was that deflowering occurred in Portugal, the boy was a bit willing, and drunk on Studds supplied red wine. There was no more chance of a Massachusetts DA, or Federal DA prosecuting Studds than a 1920′s Georgia Sheriff investigating a Red Neck killing of a black boy. ( The gay mafia is alive and well )
By the way, after Studds retired with his Congressional pension, he got himself appointed as director of the New Bedford Whaling Museum( harpoons and sperm whales ) and then retired from that. A nice twofer pension.
28. Roger: ” 2 points to make: 1) This is news because of the hypocrisy involved here. Republicans tell you how to live their lives, what marriage is, what women should do with their bodies etc. and are supposedly the party of family values and that facade is coming apart now. Dorks like you can’t seem to understand that.”
Republicans generally believe in family values, this is true. They do not, however “tell you how to live your lives.”
It is the Democrats who want to tell you
1) What contracts you can enter into
2) What is “safe” for you
3) What is “good” for you
4) Which businesses should succeed
5) Which businesses should perish
6) How you should “help” mother Gaia
7) What cars you should be permitted to drive
8) How you should “volunteer” to “help” the community
9) How much money you should pay your employees
10) How much money you should be paid
11) How to dispose of waste in your household
12) Whether and how you are permitted to defend yourself
13) What you may say aloud
These are all topics on which Democrats have proposed laws or regulations in some scenario or other.
I’m astonished that there is any traction left in the idea that the Republicans are the party of coercion and control.
yeah, Roger, dorks like you…..(!)
Markie, Markie, Markie,
Could not possibly be a smart as proported. If he was, and did this anyway, then he did so as a forfeiture of the GOP nomination. So what. The GOP bench is deep enough to never miss him. Lord knows the qualification standard was all but eliminated last November.
We should be glad one of the medias annoited front-runners stumbled so early. His self-disqualification helps clear the field for serious candidates. As was the case with McCain, when the media start soft peddling the GOP candidate THEY say would be most formiddable, find another guy, or gal – - now.
PS. to you schaufenfruedean trolls, enjoy the moment but remember who lowered the bar first, and whatever Stanford did, he didn’t commit perjury denying it. He manned up, a concept with which JFK, RFK, Billy Jeff, Barney, Gary, Teddy, et. al. are not familar. The sordid history of the Dems in this regard, along with no comparitive political consequemces, is no doubt the true source of your enjoyment. So enjoy the moment now, while the media wing of your party is still breathing. With the corresponding decline of main stream media and growth of the blogosphere and other non-traditional press the revocation of the Democrat free pass is inevitible.
Q: Why is the Iranians dying?
A:
ObamaMark SanfordThanks for the update, Hat Tool. Also, love the Freudian reference to Iran as a ‘company’.
Mark Sanford – the lead story on this blog for two days – and counting.
#17 says it in two lines, and if they continue and they will as the voyures they are, this country as has been in the eyes of the Europeans, looks even more sexually obsessed than politically interested what is happening to their lives.
The news media seems to think more about a man staying in officw as a governor than a Pres. that is putting our country in financial ruin. Our country
will not have to be taken by force the government on both sides of the isle have been giving it away with our help, this is not a movie, we are the
writers/actors/producer’s and we all need to start creating a better book to leave in the library.
LOL Headline at CNN.com as Ahmadinejad wants Obama to stop interfering.
42. salaryman:
Glad you cleared all that up. So how come Barney always talks like he has a swollen phallus in his mouth?
Also, since you’re so expert in the details, remind me: Was it Fanny Mae or Freddie Mac that Barney was in bed with?
You’re welcome, Roger.
btw: My aged mother still calls me Theodore, but here it’s Ted.
Roger L. Simon,
“They need our support more than anything.”
Care to elaborate on exactly what kind of support?
Do you the all powerful wearing of green? A military strike?
They need us to stay the hell out of their business. And Obama is handling it beautifully.
jharp:
History will record Obama as the president who was unable to condemn the murder of innocents.
63. qrstuv:
jharp:
“History will record Obama as the president who was unable to condemn the murder of innocents.”
Typical wingnut jackass response. Ignore the facts and bash Obama.
The one thing Obama has done is to condemn the violent response to the protesters while leaving it to the Iranians to handle their own problem.
And rightfully so. It is an Iranian problem and needs an Iranian solution.
Democrats …
Cheating on your wife gets you exhalted and hailed as something wonderful.
Republicans …
Cheating on your wife gets your career ended in humiliation.
Republicans …
Cheating on your wife gets your career ended in humiliation.
Jun 26, 2009 – 8:19 pm
It’s the dereliction of duty, bud. Vitter, Craig, and Ensign didn’t have their careers ended, now did they?
And tell Eliot Spitzer that he is being exalted and is something wonderful.
You guys are truly just plain nuts.
I am a lifetime Conservative and I say we need to impeach Sanford immediately. Only returning to American Family Values will save the Republican Party and America.