This is what I have to say about Mark Sanford—and Argentina
I found the Mark Sanford disappearance bizarre from the start. What governor and public figure thinks he can vanish for five days and have nobody notice or care?
That fact alone seemed to indicate that there was something very very wrong here. And today’s news conference that the Governor called to clear things up only muddies the waters a bit further: whatever was he thinking of?
Here’s the full text of the Governor’s meandering address, in which he confesses that when he went AWOL for five days he was actually seeing a woman in Argentina with whom he’d been having an affair. I didn’t watch him as he delivered his confession, but on reading his words I can’t help but feel that this is a man who is unbalanced in some way. And I don’t just mean the obvious moral sense of betraying his wife, sons, the people of the state of South Carolina, and the Republican Party. My sympathies go in particular to his wife and family; what a mess Sanford has made of things.
But there are certain details to his story—especially the Argentina angle, and in particular his rambling and nearly incoherent statement “And so, oddly enough, I spent the last five days, and I was crying in Argentina so I could repeat it when I came back here, in saying, you know, while, indeed, from a heart level, there was something real…” that rang a faint bell.
It was a bell that grew louder and more insistent, and led me inexorably here.
Which in turn led me to compose the following song parody. As you read it and compare it to the original (and to his press conference), you may notice the curious fact that I hardly had to change a word to make it fit.
It won’t be easy
You’ll think it strange
When I try to explain how I feel
That I still need your love
After all that I’ve done
You won’t believe me
All you will see
Is a man you thought you knew
Although he’s confused to the nines
At sixes and sevens with you
I had to let it happen
I had to change
Couldn’t stay all my life as governor
Looking out of the window
Staying out of the sun
So I chose freedom
Running around trying everything new
But nothing impressed me at all
I never expected it to
I cried five days in Argentina
The truth is I never had a clue
All through my wild days
My mad existence
I broke my promise
Don’t keep your distance
And as for fortune and as for fame,
Yes, I invited them in,
Though it seemed to the world
They were all I desired
They are illusions
They’re not the solutions
They promise to be
The answer was here all the time
I loved her and went off on a spree
I cried five days in Argentina
The truth is I never had a clue
All through my wild days
My mad existence
I broke my promise
Don’t keep your distance
Have I said too much?
There’s nothing more I can think of to say to you
But all you have to do
Is look at me to know
That every word is true
Wow, you are talented. You should make a video and post it on youtube.
Ah Steve, you should hear me sing and you would never make such a suggestion.
As for talent—really, look at the original lyrics. They fit the situation almost perfectly already.
Apparently a lot of people knew all about the affair since before the election, as in friends, fellow politicians and including a SC newspaper – which sat on the story for months. There are still a lot of unanswered questions about this.
Very sad for him and his family. I hope he can pull his life back together. Pace Scott Fitzgerald, there are second acts in American lives.
Jenny Sanford is apparently a pistol. She kicked him out two weeks ago.
Wow. Impressive lyric treatment of the press conference.
If you read his emails to her it’s obvious he was (is) head over heels in love. It is not your basic Clinton-Edwards-Spitzer tryst.
I have a theory about politicians and illicit sex. Since most politicians are lawyers, it fits with my impression of lawyers in general. Exceptions exist, by the way.
I’ve noticed that most lawyers, males and females, have a problem with keeping it in their pants. Probably the most oversexed occupational group in the country. I think perhaps it has to do with the linkage of sex with power, which is always a sick and emotionally disturbed combination.
¡Que macana con la mina bonita!
The worst part is that, as Micke Licht points out, Sandford is outsourcing even adultery.
Well, poor Mark Sanford will never be president now. Americans prefer their chief executives to lie about their infidelities.
And not to drive their cars off bridges (Teddy Kennedy) or wear earth-toned suits (Al Gore) or – and I make this prediction here, for the first time – to sport hockey hair (Tim Pawlenty.) For those who don’t know, that’s the hairstyle knows as “party in the front, business in the back.” Although Tim’s trimmed up some since he hit the national scene last summer.
Michelle Malkin nailed it- bastard. His wife is by all accounts a true class act, and the children are well raised.
I live in SC, and have voted for him every time he ran for office. The news articles about him repeatedly emphasize that he bucked republican leadership both in the House and in Columbia. As a true ‘libertatrian leaning republican” that’s one reason why I liked him so much, in addition to his fiscal conservatism. The State House is populated by a virtual clown college of special interests and crooks, and the more those dolts on both sides hated him, the more it meant he was doing his job. The fact that people such as Andre Bauer (gross speeding, and DUIs) are criticizing him is laughable.
He has truly let down the people who voted for him, and who had hopes and high expectations for his politcal future. He left on his dime, but our time, and left the state with only the option of Andre Bauer to run it if something happened. I’m trying to be Christian about it, but right now, I hope he’s in one of the circles of hell.
Some of us old fogeys out here don’t recognize the song. What is it?
Whoops, just noticed the link. Like I said — I’m getting old.
Oddly, I feel sympathy for Sanford. I suspect his marriage may have become a loveless union a right good while ago, a union of political and parental necessity that served those interests only.
Happened to me; I wanted the union to survive because I did not want to be a part-time dad, but she kicked me out anyway, after she reduced me to an abject pleader.
So Sanford found love. Good for him.
I also am not appalled by his transcripted remarks. He wanders, but what client of a therapist does not?
At least he didn’t formally perjure himself, and probably will not earn $100 million in the 7 years after leaving office.
When I listened to portions of his press conference, I couldn’t help feeling like he wanted this to happen, on an unconscious level. Sounded a bit like a guy unraveling, to be honest.
It’s over for him. Not because of the affair, but because he’s the sitting governor of a state and he went AWOL…to South America, for pete’s sake. What if a disaster hit SC when he was gone?
I’d probably feel more sympathy for the guy (if in fact he’s in the midst of some kind of personal breakdown) if we weren’t being treated to these mea culpa press conferences on a regular basis now. Enough already. Get off the stage Mr. Sanford so the MSM can focus on Obama’s disasterous economic policies, the health care power grab…
Oh wait. Never mind.
I wonder how many powerful male political figures commit adultery. Let’s just consider Governors and members of Congress.
Beautiful women throw themselves at them all the time.(opportunity)
A politician is a social animal and they all attend myriad social functions as a part of the job.(opportunity)
Men, as a group, will do anything for sex(I am one of the exceptions:-).(predilection)
If I had to place a bet in Vegas and there was a way to arrive at an accurate figure I would bet that it is at least 50%.
If you are a Democrat an affair is not a big deal — if no law was broken or a lot of the taxpayers’ money was not used or if you didn’t compose steamy love letters that later come to light — in short, if you didn’t act like an idiot in some manner that can be used against you after the affair is exposed.
If you are a Republican you have a problem because your party, mainly since Clinton, has above all become the party of morality. This started out as method to provide stark but hypocritical contrast between your party’s members(pun intended) and Clinton’s party’s members but in subsequent years has become a monster that occasionally bites your head off because in reality no political party has a monopoly on morality.
If you are a Republican who is so stupid as to compose steamy emails to your paramour that are later leaked by someone on your staff
(a previously spurned lover? a disgruntled staff member whom you have slighted? a staff member paid off by your enemies? All three?)
that are published in the local newspaper,
who sets up a false trail and excuse for his absence
which was guaranteed to raise questions even if it were true
but who subsequently gets caught in the local airport disembarking from a returning South American flight,
who characterizes his surreptitious trip at a news conference as “crying” in Argentina,
who rambles incoherently at said news conference,
who has made a bunch of enemies even in his own party …
you will end up resigning your office.
After watching the news conference again and reading around the blogs some more and mulling the whole mess over — if I was around him I would keep a close watch on him.
The emails read to me like a standard-issue infatuation that could be set aside as time passes but they are from months ago and the fact is that he hasn’t been able to get rid of his fixation on the lady. There is nothing standard about the trip or the news conference. I think this guy could be dangerous to himself and maybe others. Somewhere along the line a screw came loose.
grackle,
The much hackneyed (I’m not saying YOU do it) charges of hypocrisy leveled at Republicans only serves to point out the fact that objective moral standards still exist in society, however tattered they may be (and I’m one of those males who has not strayed from his wife and never wanted to). I would rather that such standards actually be injected into politics, as opposed to their being no standards at all.
Some and not all of those people who gleefully revel in flinging the “Hypocrisy!” clarion call at Republicans are actually betraying a badly disguised contempt for religion. And I’m not saying YOU are doing that, because I get the sense you are not that kind of guy. But it’s out there and it’s corrosive.
Someone very wise once told me that hypocrisy is the tribute vice pays to virtue.
Which is what Fred said more eloquently above, but I like how neatly the phrase rolls out.
grackle,
The much hackneyed (I’m not saying YOU do it) charges of hypocrisy leveled at Republicans only serves to point out the fact that objective moral standards still exist in society, however tattered they may be (and I’m one of those males who has not strayed from his wife and never wanted to). I would rather that such standards actually be injected into politics, as opposed to their being no standards at all.
I would prefer that the Republicans get back to the old tried and true principles of governance that limited government, a free market economy and a strong national defense represented for their Party. Those were good principles that could again attract voters but instead the GOP wastes its time and energy on demagoging on immigration, promoting religion, trying to make sure the gays don’t marry and other inappropriate and increasingly irrelevant issues.
I could care less whether your run of the mill GOP member screws around on his wife or not. That’s between him, his spouse and his lover and is none of my business. It’s a bit more relevant to me when it involves a GOP leader because they are in the public eye and in a position of leadership and being stupid with their weenie means they are idiots and probably not fit to lead. They put themselves in a position to be pressured or blackmailed if they can’t keep it zipped up.
It is more difficult for me to be forgiving about the moral transgressions of Republicans, especially if the politician himself has played the Morality Card very often and very hard in his career. Hypocrisy on that level turns my stomach. I consider it to be much more moral to provide for the safety of Americans through a strong national defense than to try to see to it they only have sex when, where and with whom celebrities like Rush Limbaugh or Pat Robertson deem proper.
Some and not all of those people who gleefully revel in flinging the “Hypocrisy!” clarion call at Republicans are actually betraying a badly disguised contempt for religion. And I’m not saying YOU are doing that, because I get the sense you are not that kind of guy. But it’s out there and it’s corrosive.
The contempt is for the hypocrisy, not for religion. I’m not “gleefully flinging” the hypocrisy word. That would mean I am happy about the hypocrisy that runs through the Republican leadership like marbling in a fifty dollar steak and I am decidedly NOT happy that religion has assumed such importance in the Republican scheme of things – but that doesn’t mean that I have contempt for religion per se. On the contrary, I have respect for religion unless misguided practitioners of a particular religion attempt to impose their religion on me. Then I get my back up since proselytizing is a condescending form of aggression.
Be as religious as you want to be and promote your religion in your house of worship and your home. Just don’t let it take over your politics. Religion is or at least should be about individual salvation and not about politics.
Also, it annoys me when religious folk assume that morality can only be found and practiced through religion. Religion doesn’t own morality.
I have a different opinion which is more along he lines of Mr. Frank and Thomas (and I’m a woman – not a man defending a man because of “sex drive” or some such nonsense) I agree that it was clear the governor had fallen head over heels in love. I think he was honest when he said he did not go looking for it; it just happened. He’s human, and had apparently been having marital problems for a long time. More than half of married couples end up in divorce. From this commonly known fact, we can draw the inference that a lot more married couples have troubled marriages — some are able to work things out, while others are not.
I personally know two couples whose marriages completely and irrevocably fell apart in the very early yrs. Nonetheless, they nobly (?) decided to stay together “for the children.” They live separate lives, live in separate rooms in their house, communicate primarily via email, and are only together when participating in activities involving the children. For the last 12 years or so, they continued this charade without even their respective families suspecting a thing. Even when they became aware, the chaade was continued with regard to the rest of the world — including their children. These children have grown up in a home in which the parents can’t stand each other, and in both cases it is one of the parents who has no compunction about regularly making snide, demeaning, and critical remarks to the other — IN FRONT OF THE CHILDREN. This is under some misguided notion that such behavior will teach the children what a loser one parent is, while convincing them that the other parent is noble, self-sacrificing and the one who merits all their love and loyalty.
This does not work. Children generally want to love both their parents. After all, they are part of both these people. Less than the constant conflict maintained between the parents, there is no question that such behavior undermines the self-esteem of the children. Also, as they emerge from the “young child” ages, they become keenlym aware that their home is not like their friends’ homes and a great deal is amiss. I have always been of the opinion that contrary to the intent of creating a “normal” home life, it is much more damaging to the children. They are learning just what a loveless marriage is, and absorb the example they have witnessed every day of their loves, that perhaps this is the way things are. This is what marriage is. Frankly it galls me, and especially when there are extense flare-ups, when the parents fall into no holds bar behavior, it is horrible.
I don’t know the extent of problems between Gov. Sanford and his wife, but it is existed for some time. Some men feel entitled to seek to satisfy their sexual “needs” outside of the house, but do not seek a relationship. Others are not necessaily looking for either sexual fulfillment or a full-blown relationship, but it is not uncommon during these difficult times, that an understanding “dear, dear” friend, in whom the troubled spouse can confide, and probably find comfort and sympathy. Frequently, this sets the stage for unintended consequences, like falling in love.
We have lived through many generations of Congressmen and even numerous Presidents who have been unfaithful. Some find it a way to affirm their feelings of goodness; for some it is an affirmation of power and a means to shore up damaged ego. Whether we learn of the affairs during their public service, or afterwards, does it change the nature of the work they do and the results attained? This surely is a consideration that has been completely lost in this era of media titillation and infotainment. Aside from wondering how a newspaper would have access to the private emails of the parties involved without having had access to their computers, the publication of the private emails between Gov. Sanford and his paramour disgusted me most! I was surprised that even Fox News reported some of these publications — I was most surprised as I have come to expect them to be somewhat above the fray in this regard. We have long been mourning the deterioration of MSM. We now have confirmation that they have descended to the level of tabloids like The National Inquirer.
Most of us were around when we had a president who not only had a history of serial affairs, but was even arrogant enough to screw around with a very young girl, in the oval office on the people’s time. And many in this country felt it was “no big deal.” In the last couple of years, we have witnesed numberous witness stymie their careers by not only having affairs, but breaking the law while doing so (Gov. Spitzer; Gov. Blagoyevich) and one Governor who was forced to admit that his sexual proclivities were not what was assumed by his marriage, and we learned he was gay, and had rewarded his partner in inappropriate ways.
Politicians are entitled to private lives. They are human but not super-human. The politicization of politicians private lives has gone way over the line. Those who flaunt such things in front of the public probably deserve judgement. There is no absolute, and those who keep such things within the sphere of their private lives should at least be accorded privacy unless their lapse effects their job responsibilities.
Most distasteful was the publishing of the very private emails between Gov. Sanford and the woman in Argentina. I don’t know how they were retrieved without physical access to either of their computers, but that should be a crime. It’s one thing when a crime has been committed and law enforcement takes possession of computers for investigation. It’s a whole other thing for such information to be retrieved and published in MSM for public titillation or to further political destruction. It’s pure voyeurism and the public is NOT entitled to know. We are all aware of the deterioration of the MSM, but EVERYone published excerpts, including Fox News, to my surprise and disappointment. Does anyone remember the days when only the National Enquirer would do this kind of thing? Yuck!
csimon: I’m in complete agreement about the publication of the emails. An invasion of privacy, but the MSM is very used to doing this sort of thing these days. And I felt the same way about a lot of the details in the Starr report on the Lewinsky affair—way too much information than we needed to know, and published only to humiliate, in my opinion.
Paradoxically, however, the Sanford emails have served to humanize his affair and make it clear it was no fling. That doesn’t mean they should have been published, however.
csimon brings up some interesting points. The folks I feel sorry for are the entertainers. They provide so much enjoyment to us and they DO get riches in exchange but the down side is that they can never have a normal life.
Britney Spears can’t go to a coffee shop, have an expresso and read the paper. That kind of freedom is not available to the poor girl. If I do something stupid in public a few people may see and shake their head but it won’t be on Fox News the next day. If Russell Crowe gets drunk the paparazzi will be there recording it.
One day I was at a certain place I used to go on my lunch hour. I saw Tommy Lee Jones approaching. He was going to pass close by but didn’t see me because his head was bowed as if he was deep in thought. He was a few feet from me when he suddenly became aware of me. He was startled. A look of fright came over his face and in his eyes and he almost came to a halt. Neither of us said a word. He quickly saw that I was not a threat and moved on. I realized then that he probably had to be on his guard all the time. Sad.