South Carolina Gov. Mark Sanford unmoored from reality
Kathleen Parker
WASHINGTON — A wise man once said that love is the triumph of imagination over intelligence.
No one who managed to get through the torture of South Carolina Gov. Mark Sanford's news conference admitting to an affair would disagree. Yes, I know, shocking. Another Republican affair. Next thing you know, we'll learn that a Democrat hasn't paid his taxes.
If we were feeling charitable, we might say something about man's fallen nature and his attempt to repair himself through public works. Thus, Republicans touting family values can't seem to stay zipped.
We might conclude that public espousals carry certain risks of self-incrimination.
Before charity exhausts its welcome, let's do give Sanford this much: He has a flair for the dramatic in what otherwise would have been banal. Nothing like vanishing for a few days amid lies and speculation to get that "whole sparking thing" going, as Sanford ickily described his affair.
That was but one of many bits of information the governor might have spared the world — and his family. His news conference felt like a combination AA meeting-tent revival, filled with self-recrimination and flagellation. Although his agony seemed sincer, his apparent need to drag everyone else along his Via Dolorosa was embarrassing and politically disastrous.
The man would not stop talking. Even though most cable news channels covered the spectacle live, Sanford began with a recounting of his youth when he hiked the Appalachian Trail. What? He spoke for five minutes before moving, finally, to the point: Where did he go, with whom, and why?
People will forgive human frailty, especially in matters of the flesh. But Sanford's foray into iniquity has potential repercussions beyond what he and his wife ultimately resolve. He did disappear for several days, five of which he confessed to having spent "crying in Argentina."
And, there's no nice way to put this, he lied — by omission if not commission.
He lied by not telling his staff where he was going or how to reach him. He deceived his staff by allowing them to believe and then report to the media that the governor was hiking in the Appalachians. And most important to his political future, he failed to make arrangements for his state's uninterrupted governance.
Sanford acknowledged all of these failings, but he seemed less interested in discussing his shirking of executive duty than in making statements abouthis heart. Not only did we learn Sanford's philosophy of moral absolutes, but we were led through the meaning and purpose of God's laws.
Spiritually, Sanford may have succeeded in checking off several acts of contrition. But politically, he did everything wrong — invoking religion, apologizing endlessly, and acknowledging friends in a sort of reverse intervention.
Meanwhile, the questions that matter remain unaddressed. Can a governor lie about his whereabouts and leave the country while his state is untended? Were taxpayer funds ever used in the pursuit of his personal gratification?
If not for Sanford's appalling judgment in disappearing, his personal travails might never have come to public light. That alone suggests that he is a man unmoored from reality and, just possibly, unfit for public office.
Contact Kathleen Parker at [email protected].
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