You all want to discuss Sanford, as evidenced by the comments. Go ahead.
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[…] coincidences as regards Mark “I’m David, she’s Bathsheba” Sanford: Oddly, whenever I hear someone who claims to know God’s will it exactly matches what that person w… […]
Zifnab
First on the Appalachian Trail!
Cat Lady
No, now we want to talk about Al Franken! He’s good enough, and gosh darn it, we like him!
linda
how about senator al franken…finally:
via wapo:
BREAKING NEWS
Minn. Supreme Court Paves Way for Franken to Fill Senate Seat
gex
Any good articles or links on Franken yet? I’m mainly curious if the MNSC made any moves to order Pawlenty to sign the certificate, since Pawlenty’s statements about signing it seemed to hedge around the fact that he wouldn’t disobey an order by MNSC.
@Cat Lady: Well he’s good enough, and smart enough anyhow. Let’s just leave it at that.
Cain
Well, looks like Franken wins! Fuck Sanford.. (or leave it up to his mistress or something)
About time. Welcome aboard, Franken. Now let’s see Pawlenty sign it.
cain
Bill E Pilgrim
I think the post title can serve for Coleman just as well.
That’s what I thought it referred to when I saw it anyway.
Ed Drone
Warning: If you have an election lasting longer than six months, call your physician!
Ed
Keith G
Sanford? So last week.
scav
ah, but it’s not like 5-0 is anything but a controversial squeeker, correct? :)
BDeevDad
The DougJ of the health care debate:
Healthy Americans Against Reforming Medicine (HAARM)
gex
I wonder if the MNSC’s unanimous decision will be described by the 9-0 crowd? Was it a squeaker? Or is it eleventy-billion to 0?
MikeJ
Unanimous.
Ash Can
Tell me DougJ doesn’t want to choke every last one of us. >D
ricky
Note that after two straight court rulings, Sotomayor has yet to get a single justice ruling in her favor.
ricky
I demand to know what Senator Franken thinks the direction of the country should be post-MJ.
DougJ
Only the ones of you who are really ThymeZone.
JK
Congrats to Al Franken.
Mark Sanford is still an arrogant, lying scumbag
Persia
@Keith G: Although I was pretty impressed that he wants to ‘learn’ in the governor’s office. I wasn’t aware it came with training wheels and hand-holding before now.
bago
@ricky: But what about the gay court rulings?
Elie
Congrats to Al Franken. They finally allowed him to have what he EARNED fair and square…
As for Sanford — just as I suspected, he will HAVE to resign…its no longer a woman but WOMEN. And how do we know he didnt spend State or Fderal money — his say so?
Gosh, he is garbage and the longer he hangs on, the deeper into the trash bin he drags the already odiferous reputation of the hypocrite Republicans – repuations that they worked hard to earn…
Deborah
Sanford found more women? Not surprised, but wonder how the Argentinian feels.
Some would argue that SC deserves Bauer. They elected these people, after all, when they could have written in Al Franken.
ETA: Or “Lizard People.”
Ash Can
BTW, especially since Sanford is apparently an accomplished multitasker in the skirt-chasing department, shouldn’t the title of this post be “Happy Tails?”
Demo Woman
It sounds like Sanford stopped crossing the line with other women after he met Maria. How touching. A few days ago The State admitted to having info about other women so that’s why he came clean.
The important news of the day Sen. Al Franken. I won’t believe it though unless Pawlenty signs the certificate.
Deborah
I went off to look up the other women. The whole article is ridiculous, but here is a highlight:
Jenny, if you don’t toss him overboard for paragraph number 1 I give up on you.
khead
Sanford and Son just wasn’t the same without Redd Foxx.
Elie
Deborah —
On Josh Marshall’s site it speaks of his interview with AP and the other women — that he “crossed the line” with but didnt have sex ( if you believe THAT one).
Pure garbage — and so deserving of what is going to happen to him. He STILL doesnt get that he is not exceptional and that the rules DO apply to him…
jacy
If my S/O told me he’d “found his soul mate but was trying to fall back in love” with me, he would be rapidily walking toward a Holiday Inn with his teeth in a bag.
Comrade Mary, Would-Be Minion Of Bad Horse
Fuck you, you lachrymose, self-pitying asshole. No class. No fucking class whatsoever. Yes, The State found out about the other women, so maybe he could justify some brief statement acknowledging that, but this maudlin wallow is disgusting.
Jenny Sanford may or may not be a sanctimonious Pharisee bitch, but she’d have to have drowned his budgie and shortsheeted his shorts to ever come near to deserving this passive-aggressive public humiliation.
And his four kids? They don’t deserve this, either.
As I said a couple of days ago, flawed, hurting human beings can cause a hell of a lot of pain to other people. But they don’t get a pass on the pain they cause to others.
Elie
Jacy —
…Ha,ha,ha, and a big shoe stuck in his backside!
Comrade Mary, Would-Be Minion Of Bad Horse
Oh, yeah. “Teeth in a bag” FTW.
Brachiator
@Deborah:
Cigars? Funny the degree to which Sanford’s behavior resembles some of Clinton’s attempt to avoid sex, while having … sex.
Oh, hell. Instead of Limbaugh blaming Obama for Sanford’s adultery, we might as well go old school and blame Bill again.
I hope the kid are allright, but what adults do about their love lives are not the kids’ business. “Deserves” really doesn’t enter into it.
The Saff
The whole thing is like a bad Lifetime movie. I was particularly galled by the “found his soul mate but was trying to fall back in love” with his wife thing. Really, she should toss him and move on with her life (try to get the beach house on Sullivans Island because the town is lovely).
And Sanford keeps proving he has zero credibility on anything. Past behavior is an indicator of future behavior.
On a different subject, yay Senator Al Franken!
gwangung
@Comrade Mary, Would-Be Minion Of Bad Horse: I suspect either way would work…
Ash
I’d like to know if John Cole still feels any sympathy for this douchebag who blabs to the entire fucking world about his “soul mate” but oh, he’d still like to try to love his wife.
Is this the type of dick other men find sympathetic characters?
The Saff
Agreed, Comrade Mary. I feel really bad for those kids.
Nice role model for your boys, Mark.
PattyP
AP: SC gov ‘crossed lines’ with women
“Chaperoned by a spiritual adviser?” Is that what they’re calling threesomes these days?
Johnny B. Guud
This was amusing from Reuters:
Continue to deteriorate? I thought the credit markets were “improving”?
JK
Jenny Sanford should have went Lorena Bobbitt on Mark Sanford.
Comrade Mary, Would-Be Minion Of Bad Horse
@Brachiator:
It’s not his love life I’m objecting to. His public self-pity fest is exposing his kids to brutal and needless additional humiliation. He fucked around: he fucked up. Fine. But it is in no way necessary for him to bleat to a newspaper about trying to fall back in love with the mother of his children while talking about how much he loves his soulmate.
He may really feel that. This is something that may or may not be discussed honestly within the family, although I very much doubt it. But the press is the last fucking place he should be talking like this. He’s trying to salvage his self-image at the expense of his kids. Fuck him gently with a chainsaw.
Ash Can
@Ash: In John’s defense, I recall that he was commenting on what he saw as sincerity of emotion in Sanford’s initial public statement. Fine and dandy, but with the latest developments I really have to wonder what sincere emotion looks like in Sanford’s mind.
JenJen
@Deborah: Paragraph 1 warrants a frying pan to Sanford’s face, if you ask me. Who says that?!
Here’s another money quote from the Governor Who Talks Too Much, about the previously-unacknowledged trysts with his Argentinian Soulmate:
Don’t try that one at home, married people. Ouch!
Elie
Any bets on how long till he is asked to resign or impeachment proceedings pending a thorough audit of his actual expenses on his love trysts?
I say he is gone within a week by resignation…
I suspect Jenny has already begun to measure him up for the “payback”. She is a prideful woman from what I have read and she is going to make sure that she gets all that back on his hide. Not only will he not have a pot to p— in but the full story on his wonderful personality will be revealed to further smash what is left of his career. Maybe he can sell cars at a GM dealership after this…
gex
@Deborah: Agreed on dumping his butt for calling the mistress his soul mate right before committing to trying to fall back in love with his wife.
Look, I know shit happens and you might just meet someone who really sparks for you. But it seems clear he put himself in a position guaranteeing it would happen by flirting with all those women. He wants kudos for walking up to the line but not crossing it, whereas I see that as deliberately putting himself in the position where unexpected sparkage could and would ruin his marriage.
Elie
gex:
He is a narcissistic personality type. He does not get, does not see how what he is saying is devastating his wife and children. It does not even ocurr to him — he cannot empathize. He can make inferences about feelings but he doesnt actually KNOW what empathy is — what putting yourself in someone’s position and feeling their pain means except in the most suferficial sense. It was also why just going on the lam for 5 days escaped him as something he should not do — he could not see or feel how others would interpret his behavior.
Look it up — Narcissistic personality disorder…
Ash
@Ash Can: That’s why I asked if he STILL feels that way. Not that I understood his feelings in the first place.
gex
@Elie: True, I get that. But he knows what kind of politics he plays – he was putting himself in jeopardy with that crap. It’s not the narcissism, although there is plenty of that, it’s the hubris.
Xenos
I just love that he voted to impeach Clinton. The bad karma of that period is taking a long time to play out but it sure is gratifying to see it in action.
A Cat
@gex:
Whereas I see a narcissist who has no clue as to what it means to love another person and he’s just hopping from emotional high to emotional high till he finds the right women and situation to spin up the drama he craves to feed his narcissism.
[edit] I just saw your response and wanted to add this: Hubris is part and parcel of narcissistic personalities.
Ash Can
@JenJen:
Oh God yes. This reminds me of a wonderful snippet of a radio interview I heard back when the Blagojevich story was breaking. A lawyer who specializes in representing prominent people who come under indictment was discussing Blagojevich’s defiant attitude and apparent inability to stop running off at the mouth. The lawyer said, “When a client who’s under indictment comes to me, the first thing I do is to send that person to Shut-Up School. And rule number one of Shut-Up School is, shut up.”
Somewhere in South Carolina, a firm full of high-priced divorce lawyers is closing up shop for the afternoon and throwing themselves a big-ass party.
Brachiator
@Comrade Mary, Would-Be Minion Of Bad Horse:
His kids may be embarrassed and teased, but they aren’t gonna die from humiliation. Most of their friends aren’t even watching the news. This is more a spectacle for adults.
He’s a public figure, and he’s also fighting for his political future. He can’t keep any of this behind closed doors because neither the media nor his political enemies will let him.
By the way, his Argentine girl friend has also had to address the media, and makes the interesting observation that someone had hacked her email account months ago.
The story that’s not being covered is whether there were any political dirty tricks behind what happened to Sanford.
And God knows that he puts his foot in his mouth whenever he talks about this, but I appreciate some of his goofball romantic honesty in the way he talks about his Argentine soulmate. I find this honesty far more refreshing than Bill Clinton’s “Monica Who?” denials or Larry Craig’s “I am not gay” toe-tapping.
ricky
@ bago
I am unaware there have been any, but I am sure they threaten the sanctity of the straight court rulings which march steadily against the liberal drumbeat in favor of Sotomayor.
Deborah
@Brachiator:
I agree with Comrade Mary about the kids. This is not being handled within the family; it’s being handled with competing interviews. They aren’t infants: everything their parents are saying in public about each other, and third parties, the kids can, and likely will, read or hear about. Were I Ms Sanford I would be dreading the return to school of my oldest kids, which would seem sure to include some comments rating dad’s various women.
I can understand a marriage gradually failing and getting a divorce, I can’t understand Sanford’s bizarre stunt of disappearing, aptly grabbed by his political enemies to call attention to his unexplained absences and their likely cause. It’s like he noted that Kwame in Detroit was outed when his security followed him, so he figured if he ditched security nothing could go wrong.
It’s now on his wife to demonstrate for the kids what you do when your partner publicly shits on you, and then tries to make sure the AP understands that while he cheated on you at no time did he cheat on his mistress, or at least there will not be a credit card trail to prove it.
ricky
Sanford has now told AP he has “crossed the line” with other women. He denied, however, this involved any “bumping uglies.”
JenJen
@Ash Can: It kind of has me wondering if maybe his Press Secretary hates his guts.
What kind of handler allows a sitting Governor to give a rambling, emotional, tell-all interview to the AP like this, when he’s trying to hold onto his job? The guy admits to not being in love with his wife, fooling around with other women besides his mistress (and what kind of trips were those, and with whom, I wonder), and freely tells the AP he covered his tracks by paying with cash. It boggles the mind.
My gut tells me the interview was political suicide, but I freely admit that I don’t understand Republicans, and from what I’ve seen in the past, they might just give him a pass.
But one thing is for certain no matter what your political affiliation: The Governor of South Carolina has lost his damned fool mind.
Xenos
@Brachiator: If the Argentine lady really is his soulmate then his path forward is clear. Unpleasant, but clear.
His obligation to his wife is paramount – a quick, simple, undramatic divorce.
grumpy realist
Eh, I sort of feel sorry for Sanford and the mess a certain Olympian deity has made of his life…or would except that Sanford has been such a pious finger-wagging moralist that it’s just one heap of Schadenfreude after another.
Also would point out that this is the sort of thing Aphrodite is notorious for doing. Trojan War, anyone?
forked tongue
Is there any possible translation for this other than that he and his pals went off on what you or I would call sex tourism jaunts but I guess he doesn’t ’cause he stuck to blow jobs or something and doesn’t consider that “sex”?
Comrade Mary, Would-Be Minion Of Bad Horse
Speaking of narcissistic personality disorder:
Read the whole thing here.
BDeevDad
It’s narcissism to the extreme because if his marriage now ends, it is not his fault because he tried to fall back in love with his wife but she would not let him. Classic Christianist thinking that it is all the woman’s fault.
Deborah
[blockquote]The story that’s not being covered is whether there were any political dirty tricks behind what happened to Sanford.[/blockquote]
Sanford hasn’t actually denied anything (except full sex with a variety of women)–it’s not like he’s being accused of something he hasn’t done. Like, disappearing from his security at regular intervals. Or running away for almost a week leaving his staff with no way to reach him or idea when he would return. Or using that excursion to carry on an affair. Or using taxpayer money to fund that junket, another thing that would get ordinary executives fired. Or sexing up a variety of other women, unless within the borders of the US is a big part of that accusation.
His political opponents seizing on this stuff is not even mildly surprising; I’m only surprised they didn’t try to nail him earlier. Taking advantage of the governor’s malfeasances both public (running off) and private (another “do as I say, not as I do” family values guy) is not dirty tricks; it’s normal political practice.
ricky
Use her Skils on his tool?
slag
I think the Sanford talk will stop when John Cole admits he was wrong. About something. Maybe.
Or did that already happen?
Elie
Ahhh — in addition to lack of empathy and grandiosity the other feature of narcissistic personality is “entitlement”. He is entitled to find the love of his life and it does not matter how he hurts his wife and children. It also does not matter that others do not see this as helping his career or that he messed up bad — he is entitled to be Governor. he does not have to do his job, be on duty or follow the requirements of a chief executive — he can do whatever he wants to — he is entitled and exceptional..
He just cannot connect the dots of consequence on anything related to himself, – the affair, the coverup, the obligations to the State to know his whereabouts. But he is more than happy to sit in relentless judgement on anyone else — and sees no hypocrisy in it. After all, he is entitled to sit above everyone else.Notice his explanation on the other women as following on occasions that he took to “blow off steam” at a public dance (which is where he met Maria). All of this wildly inappropriate behavior for the Chief executive of a State for Pete’s sake!
Thank goodness this person is not sitting in that oval office with this sense of grandiosity and entitlement. Oops – we jsut had that!
Seriously, anyone who survives a close personal relationship with a narcissist can spot em a mile away. The memory of it still makes me sick to my stomach…
flukebucket
I miss PPGAZ
Brachiator
@Xenos:
Sanford’s way might not be that clear. When writing about how the her emails might have been accessed, Sanford’s lover suggests that she has not just been sitting by the laptop waiting for “You’ve got mail” (Here’s what Sanford’s lover wrote to Argentine journalist).
“I deny categorically that the person who hacked my “Hotmail” was the friend with whom I shared some days in Brazil during the Rolex Regatta. This friend, as everyone can read in my emails, is a most excellent, respectable and honorable man incapable of doing such a thing. Not only is he not the author of this perverse act, but he also was a victim. In December 2008, the e-mails were sent to him as well as to The State newspaper, anonymously by whoever hacked them.”
Life is more complicated than the soap opera-romance novel idea that adultery or even finding your “soulmate” should automatically lead to a divorce.
Deborah – Taking advantage of the governor’s malfeasances both public (running off) and private (another “do as I say, not as I do” family values guy) is not dirty tricks; it’s normal political practice.
As Sanford’s lover suggests above, someone got ahold of these emails earlier and sent them to a person who they thought was a male rival of Sanford’s and also to the South Carolina media. This might have been a political opponent or even Sanford’s wife.
If people are going to keep up with this story, you got to follow some of the other strands in the tangled web.
His wife has had her share of public interviews. She even publically played the “for the sake of the children card.” This is understandable in some ways, since there is no good way to handle this, especially when you are a public figure.
ricky — Use her Skils on his tool?
Good one. Sanford certainly has run into a … buzzsaw … of controversy over his wacky behavior.
gex
I saw this quote taken from the State:
Emphasis added.
Yeah, he sure loves digging holes. And we all get to watch him do it now.
b-psycho
What I’m wondering is why there aren’t more single politicians. If you’re going to use your position to help get you laid, then why get, or stay, married at all? Just fucking enjoy yourself w/ no strings attached, I say…
grumpy realist
Yah, that “God meant me to remain Governor of SC!” just turned my stomach. So many bible-thumpers that claim that after praying to God, He tells them to do just what they want to do….
(Not saying anything about the existence or not of a deity. Am saying a lot about self-delusion and sanctimonious smugness.)
JenJen
Deep Thought: Did Governor Sanford wake up today and say, “You know, I just don’t think I shared enough of myself in last week’s presser”?
His press secretary must have punked him. I mean, is this payback or something?
gex
@grumpy realist: Yes. Oddly, whenever I hear someone who claims to know God’s will it exactly matches what that person wants. It’s the strangest coincidence.
Laura W
@Elie:
Yeah, mine would too except he died in Durham, NC*, the day before I agreed to move to Western NC from CO (unbeknownst to my conscious mind, anyway.)
Funny Life. Always making the Big Jokes.
(*My $ is on suicide. All of it.)
Calouste
Btw, if Sanford managed to cross quite a few lines with “a handful” of women, either he has a remarkable success rate for someone not very good looking (although rich), or he does spend a heck of a lot of the time when he is away from his wife talking to persons of the female persuation.
Michael
Jer-RY, Jer-RY, Jer-RY…..
Keith G
I was going to not comment on Sanford, but what the hell. Front porch psychology aside, the Gov is just not that bright. He has an MBA (we know about those) and as been a real estate exec. – in my mind, an operator and a self promoter, but not a “thinker”.
He is a fool who has been behaving as such for long enough for the consequences to reach critical mass, but since it is all about him, he is reluctant to walk away – as he should. In this, he is not that much different than many of our political class.
Montysano
OK….. every thread needs a devil’s advocate, so I’ll take on the job.
60+ comments, and unless I’ve missed it, all of them are of the “Sanford is such a dick” variety. What about the wife? Is it possible that she’s an unpleasant woman? Greedy? Angry? Cold? Any human being can only stand so much unhappiness before cracking. The truth is, none of us have a clue as to the real story.
gex
@Montysano: Okay, so why didn’t he just divorce her? There’s a process for dealing with a spouse that you no longer want to share your life with. Abandoning your state, fraudulently using funds, and sneaking out of the country is not the idea method.
Little Dreamer
@DougJ:
None of them were TZ, he was taking me to an emergency clinic.
Why did you do that?
Ash Can
@Montysano:
Gex is right. While this is a valid question, the answer unconditionally is to deal with her first. Granted, I don’t know what was going on behind the scenes, but judging from the way everything played out, it doesn’t look like Sanford handled things in the order he should have.
Elie
Laura W:
Yeah. When I started seeing it (the narcissism) – I could not unsee it or ever accept it again. It was like some horrible adverse reaction that would not allow me to be around him like that ever again without complete revulsion
He also ended up being pretty fragile — had a couple of suicide attempts but didn’t really want to actually kill himself —
I dunno — Sanford doesnt strike me as having that kind of strength. He is a flaccid whiner who will grovel and weep but not actually do anything that requires a real spine.
We’ll see but I bet he is gone from the Govenorship either way within a short time frame…
binzinerator
Ah yup. In any southern conservative the ol’ emotionally contrite Jesus Ah Have Sinned act is a fucking dead giveaway.
And the bastard’s still lying.
Bit of a puzzler here, eh guys? I mean, say you’re horny. You decide to ‘blow off steam’. Naturally you have to fly to South America and find some women there interested in helping you blow off that steam, and you run your hands over their tan lines some, they press up against you some, and you feel them up a bit…and then the more physical contact you have with them the more you lose interest in them!
I mean, how the hell else can that work if you’re trying to ‘blow off steam’?
Elie
Montysano:
Yeah, I know the limits of internet psychoanalysis so I don’t take my diagnosis of Sandord’s conditions completely seriously…
That said, I agree with gex — if you do not get along with your wife, you divorce her — you don’t abdicate your other responsibilities…
grumpy realist
And now we’re going to get another N weeks of tortuous sobbing by Sanford in front of the TeeVee, bless his pretty little heart. Jimmeh Swaggeh, Raht Heah!
South Carolina seems to be quite happy to let this bozo indulge in his emotional sobfest all over the media, so I guess they’ll just have to deal with the consequences of having a steadily more out-of-touch governor going through his daily dose of Wagnerian angst rather than, y’know, actually running things.
Reading the political blogs, it’s amusing to note the Machiavellian plotting that’s going on in the minds of the South Carolina politicans/political establishment when deciding which way to jump vis-a-vis support for Sanford. The fact that they’re liable to end up with a state as financially dysfunctional as California and as economically productive as Louisiana if they continue these charades for much longer seems to have slipped by the brains of any of them.
binzinerator
@forked tongue:
Nope.
binzinerator
@JenJen:
Lulz!
ruemara
I love Fred Sanford! His ingenuity in decor and can-do businessman approach to life was inspiring to me as a young black girl. His devotion to his son and friends-what?…. That cheating fool senator dude Sanford? Never mind.
rikyrah
The more stories I read about Sanford, as a woman, only two words come to mind:
hot grits
Deborah
Brachiator “As Sanford’s lover suggests above, someone got ahold of these emails earlier and sent them to a person who they thought was a male rival of Sanford’s and also to the South Carolina media. This might have been a political opponent or even Sanford’s wife.”
a) The e-mails were hacked on her end, suggesting an Argentine origin.
b) I consider hacking e-mails morally wrong (see Palin). However, assuming one’s e-mail is private, even as a high-ranking politician, is unforgiveably naive (see Palin).
c) Sanford and Chapur have made it clear the e-mails are real. Faking e-mails would be a dirty trick, but I don’t see the slime in anyone seizing on the governor’s own faux paus. This isn’t Burn Notice, sadly.
b-psycho “What I’m wondering is why there aren’t more single politicians. If you’re going to use your position to help get you laid, then why get, or stay, married at all?”
b-psycho, meet Lt Gov Andre Bauer. Of course, he’s a man near-universally described by SCans as “even more of an idiot than Sanford,” so it will be a test of that power as aphrodisiac stuff.
Jen-Jen: “His press secretary must have punked him. I mean, is this payback or something?”
I am starting to seriously consider this. Like the staffer who was almost giggling behind him at presser 1….how many of these people has Sanford pissed off? (Looking like morons for “Appalachian Trail week” might be enough on its own….add in a few Dilbert or Office-esque scenes…)
Montysano: “What about the wife? Is it possible that she’s an unpleasant woman?”
Absolutely. In which case, either a) she was always unpleasant, in which case why the hell did he marry her? or b) she used to be warm and wonderful, but over 20 years married to him, with a professional and parenting and marital partnership, she became unpleasant. In which case one has to wonder if Sanford might have had something to do with that. You can’t say “what if his wife isn’t a nice person” as though she was sent from central casting and Sanford had no say in who would play “supportive political wife.”
And as Ashcan says, he has the order wrong. If she’s changed and you’re out of love and your mind is wandering, then you get a divorce. Or counseling. Sexin up a bunch of women on male bonding sex tours, or having a long-term affair, are not first choices. And talking about it….
Casablanca has a very romantic ending, but it wouldn’t have worked if Rick and Ilsa and Victor had spent the past 2 hours having interviews with the AP about who was whose soul mate and how many times the speaker had cheated, to which base, etc.
debbie
@grumpy realist:
You’d have thought God would have been watching out for him and kept him from being caught.
Little Dreamer
@debbie:
I thought these evangelicals believed that a good tree does not bear bad fruit? I wonder how they reason that one out.
Brachiator
@Deborah:
Not necessarily true, but possible. The hacker made sure to send the emails to a local male friend of Maria and to the South Carolina newspaper. Whoever it was who did this was out to get Sanford.
They didn’t just hack Sanford’s emails. They hacked Maria’s as well. Maybe the law has to catch up. If this happened with letters, it would be a federal crime.
Again, sending the emails to the South Carolina newspaper clearly had a personal and political motive.
Is it wrong that I prefer an aduterating governor to this guy?
pragmatic idealist
The Sanford lie which caught my attention, but which I havent seen anyone else jump on is:
he said he flew down to break up with his mistress, but he bought tickets for a ten day stay. I con’t conceive of scheduling more than one day to break up, much less ten.
JackieBinAZ
Back in the day, one of my regular freelance gigs was writing the crap that goes on book jackets – for a big, religious publisher no less! One title was Jim Bakker’s post-prison confessional, I Was Wrong. The manuscript came to me half-edited and I could tell exactly where the editing stopped by where the maudlin, self-justifying tone began.
Little Dreamer
@pragmatic idealist:
What I want to know is why he took a spiritual advisor with him to say goodbye to her in New York and later booked a long trip to Argentina to break up?
Nutella
Sanford’s tacky personal life is really none of our business, amusing as it is to watch, but there are three issues that are:
1. He should be thrown out of office for sneaking off without delegating his duties to the lt gov.
2. He should be prosecuted for using public funds for a 100% personal trip to Argentina. (Giving the money back doesn’t get bank robbers off the hook and it shouldn’t let him get away with it either.)
3. He should apologize profusely to Bill Clinton and to the American public for voting to impeach Clinton.