He is falling off the edge.
Calls are growing among Republicans for love-struck South Carolina Gov. Mark Sanford to resign. As of Tueday night, 10 conservative Republican state senators had called for Sanford, who admitted an extramarital affair last week and added more details. Tuesday, to step aside. Until Sanford’s trip last month to Argentina to visit his girlfriend, the governor had been considered a rising GOP star.
He has fallen hard, far and fast.
In a letter late Tuesday, six lawmakers wrote: “The bottom line is that the Governor’s private matters should remain private, but his deception and negligence make it impossible for us to trust him, and for him to govern in the future.” Senate Majority Leader Harvey Peeler, who initiated the letter, raised questions about his mental state. “There’s just no way he’ll be able to continue as governor,” he said, expressing concerns about Sanford’s accounts of his extramarital activities. “I’m really concerned about his mental well being.”
Maybe his private matters should remain private, but he keeps confessing to a longer list of sins. And he seems to be unhinged.
Peeler told CNN that the governor “has lost his ability to lead, and I’m afraid he has lost his ability to function as a man. He is sitting all alone in that big governor’s mansion, totally alone,” Peeler continued. “It’s about leadership and moving forward and it’s time for him to resign.”
He really seems lost.
Hugh Leatherman, Thomas Alexander, Paul Campbell, Jake Knotts, Larry Martin and William O’Dell also signed the letter. Earlier, GOP state Sen. Larry Grooms said the governor has “lost the moral authority to lead our state, so he needs to step down for the good of our state.”
This morning, U.S. Sen. Jim DeMint, a South Carolina Republican, didn’t call for Sanford’s resignation, but suggested we stay tuned. “Mark and I are good friends and good friends with Jenny. It’s tragic for their family. It’s very bad for our state,” he said in an interview with Fox News. “We have high unemployment — a lot of challenges, right now, and we need strong leadership. So this comes at a very bad time.”
Well, what would have been a good time for the Governor to 'fess up to cheatin' on his wife and family repeatedly?
DeMint said Sanford had “dropped the flag” for the conservative movement, adding: “The rest of us have to get up and go on. A lot of us are talking to him behind the scenes in hopes that he’ll make the right decision about what needs to be done.”
Dropped the conservative flag? How about the religious, moral and marital?
Another story details the Guv's dalliances, and his gamble.
After days of assuring the public he was firmly in control after admitting a scandalous affair, South Carolina Gov. Mark Sanford detailed other encounters with his Argentine "soul mate," dalliances with women before her, and his struggle to salvage his 20-year marriage.
"I don't want to blow up my time in politics," he told the AP. "I don't want to blow up future earning power, I don't want to blow up the kids' lives. I don't want to blow up 20 years that we've invested. But if I'm completely honest, there are still feelings in the way. If we keep pushing it this way, we get those to die off, but they're still there and they're still real."
His logic is twisted, reflecting his mental state.
He insists he can fall back in love with his wife, Jenny, even as he witnesses his "own political funeral." Sanford detailed more encounters with his mistress than he had disclosed during a rambling, emotional news conference last week. The new revelations Tuesday led the state attorney general to launch an investigation of Sanford's travels to check on taxpayer money.
He's out of control. Poor kids.
Showing posts with label South Carolina. Show all posts
Showing posts with label South Carolina. Show all posts
Wednesday, July 1, 2009
Saturday, June 27, 2009
Selfish?
Struggling to restore his political capital and hold onto his job, South Carolina Gov. Mark Sanford held a televised meeting of his cabinet Friday, during which he offered another emotional apology for an extramarital affair and six-day disappearance to Argentina.
He's really sorry.
State Sen. Tom Davis, one of the governor's closest allies, said Friday the governor's ability to remain in office "will depend on whether the people of South Carolina think he's sincere."
Is he really sorry? And, of what: doin' it, or gettin' caught?
Mississippi Gov. Haley Barbour, who took over as chairman of the governors group and is one of the most influential leaders in the party, said admissions like Mr. Sanford's do harm a party that has tried to define itself around strong moral principles, but that he is focusing now on gubernatorial elections in New Jersey and Virginia.
"There's certainly a negative," Mr. Barbour said. "But as to a practical effect...I don't think a single voter in New Jersey or Virginia is going to be affected by what happened to Gov. Sanford."
THAT remains to be seen.
He's really sorry.
State Sen. Tom Davis, one of the governor's closest allies, said Friday the governor's ability to remain in office "will depend on whether the people of South Carolina think he's sincere."
Is he really sorry? And, of what: doin' it, or gettin' caught?
Mississippi Gov. Haley Barbour, who took over as chairman of the governors group and is one of the most influential leaders in the party, said admissions like Mr. Sanford's do harm a party that has tried to define itself around strong moral principles, but that he is focusing now on gubernatorial elections in New Jersey and Virginia.
"There's certainly a negative," Mr. Barbour said. "But as to a practical effect...I don't think a single voter in New Jersey or Virginia is going to be affected by what happened to Gov. Sanford."
THAT remains to be seen.
A Political Wife’s Tough Stance Strikes a Chord
Dina Matos McGreevey, left, and Silda Wall Spitzer, right, stood beside their husbands as they admitted marital infidelity during news conferences. Gov. Mark Sanford of South Carolina, center, faced the cameras alone.
When Gov. Mark Sanford of South Carolina gave what has become a ritualistically familiar part of American politics — the news conference on marital infidelity — there was no dutiful political wife to share the spotlight and, by her very presence, imply forgiveness.
The juxtaposition of the wifes in this picture and the absence of Jenny Sanford is stark.
Jenny Sanford, the first lady of South Carolina, left her husband alone to burble at length about his yearlong affair with a woman from Argentina. Instead Mrs. Sanford released a statement that was hard hitting and to the point: she said she wanted her marriage to continue but demanded nothing less, as her price, than her husband’s “repentance.” On Friday, she told reporters she had known of the affair since January but had waited for her children’s school year to end before separating from him.
O, and did he burble.
For thousands of women, responding on the Internet and Twitter, Mrs. Sanford’s decision to hold her husband accountable provided a catharsis, a kind of public exorcism of the ghosts of political wives past.
Meryl B. Koopersmith, a couples therapist with the Ackerman Institute for the Family in Manhattan, felt similarly pleased with Mrs. Sanford. “You see all kinds of reactions to affairs in families,” Ms. Koopersmith said, “but very few who stand there stoically. Then these political wives, they are a different breed, almost semiconscious. I am all for the wife who doesn’t stand there like some puppet.”
It's unfathomable to me that a woman would stand next to such a creep, in public, and absorb the humiliation.
Few could forget Hillary Rodham Clinton’s sitting next to her husband, Bill Clinton, as he acknowledged to “60 Minutes” that he had caused pain in his marriage; or Dina Matos McGreevey, looking half dazed as Jim McGreevey detailed a homosexual affair and resigned the governorship of New Jersey; or Silda Wall Spitzer, posing just behind Gov. Eliot Spitzer of New York as he discussed hiring expensive call girls, her jaws clenched so tight that she could have cracked steel bars.
Great expression; a look at the picture confirms it.
Of course, Mrs. Sanford is hardly throwing the governor out for good. She has said she is open to reconciliation.
Still, for many women, this apparent softening did nothing to diminish her dignity. Cristina Nehring, the author of “A Vindication of Love,” a new book that argues that cynicism and pragmatism have corrupted American marriages — which, she says, should be more about true passionate love — called Mrs. Sanford’s performance “impressive” all the way around.
Speaking to the same issue, Stephanie Coontz, a professor of family studies and author of “Marriage: A History,” said she found Mrs. Sanford’s reaction “more authentic” than that of most other political wives. “She is saying she wants the marriage to survive but I am not coming out to humiliate myself in public for it,” Ms. Coontz said.
Indeed. And, in this case, the schmuck asked for permission to see his mistress again.
“If we assume the relationship is genuine on Sanford’s part, that is much more threatening to a marriage than just sex,” said Catherine J. Ross, a law professor at George Washington University and co-author of a textbook on contemporary family law.
He certainly seemed to be; he said he'd been crying for 5 days. And he missed Father's Day.
When Gov. Mark Sanford of South Carolina gave what has become a ritualistically familiar part of American politics — the news conference on marital infidelity — there was no dutiful political wife to share the spotlight and, by her very presence, imply forgiveness.
The juxtaposition of the wifes in this picture and the absence of Jenny Sanford is stark.
Jenny Sanford, the first lady of South Carolina, left her husband alone to burble at length about his yearlong affair with a woman from Argentina. Instead Mrs. Sanford released a statement that was hard hitting and to the point: she said she wanted her marriage to continue but demanded nothing less, as her price, than her husband’s “repentance.” On Friday, she told reporters she had known of the affair since January but had waited for her children’s school year to end before separating from him.
O, and did he burble.
For thousands of women, responding on the Internet and Twitter, Mrs. Sanford’s decision to hold her husband accountable provided a catharsis, a kind of public exorcism of the ghosts of political wives past.
Meryl B. Koopersmith, a couples therapist with the Ackerman Institute for the Family in Manhattan, felt similarly pleased with Mrs. Sanford. “You see all kinds of reactions to affairs in families,” Ms. Koopersmith said, “but very few who stand there stoically. Then these political wives, they are a different breed, almost semiconscious. I am all for the wife who doesn’t stand there like some puppet.”
It's unfathomable to me that a woman would stand next to such a creep, in public, and absorb the humiliation.
Few could forget Hillary Rodham Clinton’s sitting next to her husband, Bill Clinton, as he acknowledged to “60 Minutes” that he had caused pain in his marriage; or Dina Matos McGreevey, looking half dazed as Jim McGreevey detailed a homosexual affair and resigned the governorship of New Jersey; or Silda Wall Spitzer, posing just behind Gov. Eliot Spitzer of New York as he discussed hiring expensive call girls, her jaws clenched so tight that she could have cracked steel bars.
Great expression; a look at the picture confirms it.
Of course, Mrs. Sanford is hardly throwing the governor out for good. She has said she is open to reconciliation.
Still, for many women, this apparent softening did nothing to diminish her dignity. Cristina Nehring, the author of “A Vindication of Love,” a new book that argues that cynicism and pragmatism have corrupted American marriages — which, she says, should be more about true passionate love — called Mrs. Sanford’s performance “impressive” all the way around.
Speaking to the same issue, Stephanie Coontz, a professor of family studies and author of “Marriage: A History,” said she found Mrs. Sanford’s reaction “more authentic” than that of most other political wives. “She is saying she wants the marriage to survive but I am not coming out to humiliate myself in public for it,” Ms. Coontz said.
Indeed. And, in this case, the schmuck asked for permission to see his mistress again.
“If we assume the relationship is genuine on Sanford’s part, that is much more threatening to a marriage than just sex,” said Catherine J. Ross, a law professor at George Washington University and co-author of a textbook on contemporary family law.
He certainly seemed to be; he said he'd been crying for 5 days. And he missed Father's Day.
Governor’s Wife Is Hurt but Unbowed
Jenny Sanford, the first lady of South Carolina, at the family’s beachfront home Thursday on Sullivan’s Island, S.C.
As Jenny Sanford headed off for a boating trip, the day after her husband, Mark Sanford, the governor of South Carolina, told the world he had been unfaithful, she met the throng of reporters waiting outside her South Carolina vacation home, all inquiring about her emotional condition.
“Am I O.K.?” Mrs. Sanford repeated, from the driver’s seat of a vehicle. “You know what? I have great faith and I have great friends and great family. We have a good Lord in this world, and I know I’m going to be fine. Not only will I survive, I’ll thrive.”
No shrinking violet, or mumbling loyal wife, she.
It was, friends and former aides say, classic Jenny Sanford — strong willed, steely, anything but a victim. Mrs. Sanford, a former New York investment banker, largely gave up her professional life and turned to helping her husband’s political career, but those who know her well say she was also never one to abandon her sense of identity, her direction, or her own opinions.
Anything but a victim; good for her. And for others.
To one reporter who wondered what might come of Mr. Sanford’s political career, Mrs. Sanford answered sharply: “His career is not a concern of mine. He’s going to have to worry about that. I’m worried about my family and the character of my children.” And with that, Mrs. Sanford, who spent much of Thursday with her husband and said she was working on her marriage, pulled away, smilingly telling the assembled cameras, “I wish we had room on the boat for you all, but we do not.”
Now, buzz off.
Jenny Sanford was described by friends as strong willed.
Even within the dimensions of her husband’s political life, Mrs. Sanford was not merely a helpmate in a traditional first lady role, but managed her husband’s political campaigns (at first, from their basement) and later acted as a sounding board on matters of policy, a fact that one former aide to Mr. Sanford said regularly irked some members of his staff. She often studied data that was sent to the governor’s office and helped develop positions, one senior legislative staff member said, describing her as “the real brains behind the operation.”
A, so he's the air-head. And a putz; to wit:
Through a spokeswoman, Mrs. Sanford declined requests to be interviewed for this article, but told The Associated Press she learned of her husband’s affair early this year when she found a letter he had written. She told him to end the relationship, but he repeatedly asked permission to visit the woman in Argentina in the months that followed.
“I said absolutely not,” Mrs. Sanford told The A.P. “It’s one thing to forgive adultery. It’s another to condone it.”
He asked his wife's permission to keep seeing his mistress, the weasel. And this jerk was supposed to be presidential timber?
“She is one of those people who is always the smartest person in the room,” said Marjory Wentworth, a friend who is also the poet laureate of South Carolina.
In 1989, the couple married, but it was not until she had her second child that politics entered their family picture. “It was quite a surprise to me,” she told The Greenville News of South Carolina. “When he told me, I was in the hospital, and we had just delivered our second son. So we had a 15-month-old and a newborn, and he says to me, ‘I’m going to run for Congress.’”
Sounds a mite selfish.
From home, Mrs. Sanford managed that first campaign in 1994, and then his run for governor.
Friends, however, credit Mrs. Sanford with the ultimate juggling act: happily serving as a first lady who would choose one of her son’s class plays over a presidential dinner anytime, but who was also perfectly comfortable discussing intricacies of the state’s finances.
“So often when a woman is business minded, they’re not good at being a cookie baking soccer mom, but that’s the thing about Jenny,” said Jennifer Pickens, a friend for over a decade. “You cannot stereotype her that way. She can be either one of those things and do it effortlessly.”
In recent weeks, and even on Wednesday, as her husband acknowledged his affair, friends said Mrs. Sanford had remained cheerful, gracious and strong. Lalla Lee Campsen, a friend of 20 years, was with Mrs. Sanford that day and described it as a time “when Jenny exuded, perhaps as never before, her great strength of character.”
Her friends praised the statement she issued that day, saying that she would press to repair her marriage and forgive but that she had also asked her husband to leave — at least for now.
“That was definitely her, all her,” Ms. Pickens reflected. “It reeks of her. She will survive this beautifully.”
Reeks? Perhaps not the best choice of words, but the sentiment is clear.
As Jenny Sanford headed off for a boating trip, the day after her husband, Mark Sanford, the governor of South Carolina, told the world he had been unfaithful, she met the throng of reporters waiting outside her South Carolina vacation home, all inquiring about her emotional condition.
“Am I O.K.?” Mrs. Sanford repeated, from the driver’s seat of a vehicle. “You know what? I have great faith and I have great friends and great family. We have a good Lord in this world, and I know I’m going to be fine. Not only will I survive, I’ll thrive.”
No shrinking violet, or mumbling loyal wife, she.
It was, friends and former aides say, classic Jenny Sanford — strong willed, steely, anything but a victim. Mrs. Sanford, a former New York investment banker, largely gave up her professional life and turned to helping her husband’s political career, but those who know her well say she was also never one to abandon her sense of identity, her direction, or her own opinions.
Anything but a victim; good for her. And for others.
To one reporter who wondered what might come of Mr. Sanford’s political career, Mrs. Sanford answered sharply: “His career is not a concern of mine. He’s going to have to worry about that. I’m worried about my family and the character of my children.” And with that, Mrs. Sanford, who spent much of Thursday with her husband and said she was working on her marriage, pulled away, smilingly telling the assembled cameras, “I wish we had room on the boat for you all, but we do not.”
Now, buzz off.
Jenny Sanford was described by friends as strong willed.
Even within the dimensions of her husband’s political life, Mrs. Sanford was not merely a helpmate in a traditional first lady role, but managed her husband’s political campaigns (at first, from their basement) and later acted as a sounding board on matters of policy, a fact that one former aide to Mr. Sanford said regularly irked some members of his staff. She often studied data that was sent to the governor’s office and helped develop positions, one senior legislative staff member said, describing her as “the real brains behind the operation.”
A, so he's the air-head. And a putz; to wit:
Through a spokeswoman, Mrs. Sanford declined requests to be interviewed for this article, but told The Associated Press she learned of her husband’s affair early this year when she found a letter he had written. She told him to end the relationship, but he repeatedly asked permission to visit the woman in Argentina in the months that followed.
“I said absolutely not,” Mrs. Sanford told The A.P. “It’s one thing to forgive adultery. It’s another to condone it.”
He asked his wife's permission to keep seeing his mistress, the weasel. And this jerk was supposed to be presidential timber?
“She is one of those people who is always the smartest person in the room,” said Marjory Wentworth, a friend who is also the poet laureate of South Carolina.
In 1989, the couple married, but it was not until she had her second child that politics entered their family picture. “It was quite a surprise to me,” she told The Greenville News of South Carolina. “When he told me, I was in the hospital, and we had just delivered our second son. So we had a 15-month-old and a newborn, and he says to me, ‘I’m going to run for Congress.’”
Sounds a mite selfish.
From home, Mrs. Sanford managed that first campaign in 1994, and then his run for governor.
Friends, however, credit Mrs. Sanford with the ultimate juggling act: happily serving as a first lady who would choose one of her son’s class plays over a presidential dinner anytime, but who was also perfectly comfortable discussing intricacies of the state’s finances.
“So often when a woman is business minded, they’re not good at being a cookie baking soccer mom, but that’s the thing about Jenny,” said Jennifer Pickens, a friend for over a decade. “You cannot stereotype her that way. She can be either one of those things and do it effortlessly.”
In recent weeks, and even on Wednesday, as her husband acknowledged his affair, friends said Mrs. Sanford had remained cheerful, gracious and strong. Lalla Lee Campsen, a friend of 20 years, was with Mrs. Sanford that day and described it as a time “when Jenny exuded, perhaps as never before, her great strength of character.”
Her friends praised the statement she issued that day, saying that she would press to repair her marriage and forgive but that she had also asked her husband to leave — at least for now.
“That was definitely her, all her,” Ms. Pickens reflected. “It reeks of her. She will survive this beautifully.”
Reeks? Perhaps not the best choice of words, but the sentiment is clear.
The Argentine Firecracker
Gail Collins on the mark.
The only good news this week for Gov. Mark (“I love your tan lines”) Sanford is that all those celebrity deaths have knocked him off the top of the news cycle.
Poor Farrah Fawcett got knocked off the top of the page by Michael Jackson.
For the rest of us, the whole vanishing-governor-sneaks-off-to-visit-Argentine-squeeze has had a number of side benefits. The Appalachian Trail has certainly gotten a well-deserved shot of publicity. And I have to believe that business is booming for call-forwarding services.
Another big plus is that Governor Sanford has provided us with a chance to revisit little-remembered historical precedents for scandals involving American politicians and Argentine women.
O, yes: Fanne Foxe, “The Argentine Firecracker," who took a hysterical leap into the Tidal Basin after a fight with her inebriated escort, the House Ways and Means Chairman Wilbur Mills of Arkansas. I remember.
Foxe was a stripper at the Silver Slipper nightclub in Washington, and the married Mills began escorting her around during a period of major-league alcoholism. They were speeding past the Jefferson Memorial when they were stopped by police. Foxe jumped out, took a dive into the Tidal Basin, and pretty soon Mills was in the headlines and in disgrace.
Years later, after he had retired, dried out and returned to Washington as a tax lawyer, Mills told a Times reporter that during his Firecracker days, he was drinking a half-gallon of vodka a night and had hallucinations that buzzards were chasing him. As a result, he said, he lost control of his committee and failed to report out a bill in which he had a great interest.
“I had President Ford convinced on national health,” Mills said. “I could have passed it on the floor. But hell, I couldn’t get the damned committee to go with me. They had never failed to do that before, and I know now it was because of my drinking that they didn’t.”
All of that I didn't know about.
Now South Carolinians will have to decide if they want their state run by a man who can’t remember to leave a forwarding number when he scampers off to make whoopee in a different hemisphere.
While most people in the state seem to feel as if it would be swell if Sanford just resigned, the governor isn’t showing any signs that he intends to quit. It isn’t entirely clear why he wants to hang on. He’s term limited. And whatever presidential ambitions he harbored were pretty much quashed when he vanished and aides started explaining that he took a hike (well, not really) because he was emotionally exhausted from his fight over the state budget. You had to ask what he’d have to do to get over North Korea.
Really.
So far, it appears that Sanford is going to devote his career to apologizing. On Wednesday, he held a press conference and apologized to everyone from his father-in-law to American Christianity. On Thursday, he was closeted with his wife, which undoubtedly involved heavy-duty apology time. Friday, he called his staff together for more apologies, including one to the leader of the Commerce Department, to whom the governor conveyed his regrets for having undermined the dignity of a state trade mission by having sex on the Buenos Aires stop.
It was right about then that Sanford compared himself to King David, who “fell mightily, he fell in very significant ways, but was able to pick up the pieces.” I will end here so we can all ask ourselves whether the entire course of the Old Testament would have been different if David and Bathsheba had had access to e-mail.
Amen.
The only good news this week for Gov. Mark (“I love your tan lines”) Sanford is that all those celebrity deaths have knocked him off the top of the news cycle.
Poor Farrah Fawcett got knocked off the top of the page by Michael Jackson.
For the rest of us, the whole vanishing-governor-sneaks-off-to-visit-Argentine-squeeze has had a number of side benefits. The Appalachian Trail has certainly gotten a well-deserved shot of publicity. And I have to believe that business is booming for call-forwarding services.
Another big plus is that Governor Sanford has provided us with a chance to revisit little-remembered historical precedents for scandals involving American politicians and Argentine women.
O, yes: Fanne Foxe, “The Argentine Firecracker," who took a hysterical leap into the Tidal Basin after a fight with her inebriated escort, the House Ways and Means Chairman Wilbur Mills of Arkansas. I remember.
Foxe was a stripper at the Silver Slipper nightclub in Washington, and the married Mills began escorting her around during a period of major-league alcoholism. They were speeding past the Jefferson Memorial when they were stopped by police. Foxe jumped out, took a dive into the Tidal Basin, and pretty soon Mills was in the headlines and in disgrace.
Years later, after he had retired, dried out and returned to Washington as a tax lawyer, Mills told a Times reporter that during his Firecracker days, he was drinking a half-gallon of vodka a night and had hallucinations that buzzards were chasing him. As a result, he said, he lost control of his committee and failed to report out a bill in which he had a great interest.
“I had President Ford convinced on national health,” Mills said. “I could have passed it on the floor. But hell, I couldn’t get the damned committee to go with me. They had never failed to do that before, and I know now it was because of my drinking that they didn’t.”
All of that I didn't know about.
Now South Carolinians will have to decide if they want their state run by a man who can’t remember to leave a forwarding number when he scampers off to make whoopee in a different hemisphere.
While most people in the state seem to feel as if it would be swell if Sanford just resigned, the governor isn’t showing any signs that he intends to quit. It isn’t entirely clear why he wants to hang on. He’s term limited. And whatever presidential ambitions he harbored were pretty much quashed when he vanished and aides started explaining that he took a hike (well, not really) because he was emotionally exhausted from his fight over the state budget. You had to ask what he’d have to do to get over North Korea.
Really.
So far, it appears that Sanford is going to devote his career to apologizing. On Wednesday, he held a press conference and apologized to everyone from his father-in-law to American Christianity. On Thursday, he was closeted with his wife, which undoubtedly involved heavy-duty apology time. Friday, he called his staff together for more apologies, including one to the leader of the Commerce Department, to whom the governor conveyed his regrets for having undermined the dignity of a state trade mission by having sex on the Buenos Aires stop.
It was right about then that Sanford compared himself to King David, who “fell mightily, he fell in very significant ways, but was able to pick up the pieces.” I will end here so we can all ask ourselves whether the entire course of the Old Testament would have been different if David and Bathsheba had had access to e-mail.
Amen.
Thursday, June 25, 2009
Meet me in Argentina
Daily News front page: Buenos Airhead - Meet America's latest Luv Guv
NY Post front page: Runaway gov: Cry for me, Argentina. - Lust and found!
South Carolina Gov. Mark Sanford takes the oath of office for a second term with his wife, Jenny, and four sons, standing by, on Jan. 10, 2007.
State Sen. John Land, leader of the South Carolina Senate's Democrats, stopped short of calling for Mr. Sanford to resign but questioned whether the governor could be effective in office. He is prohibited by law from seeking a third term.
"The position he's taken the whole time he's been in office is, 'I'm smarter than the rest, I'm more religious than the rest, I'm more godly than the rest,'" Mr. Land said. "I just don't see how he can come back and be a sinner like the rest of us and function."
Amen.
Mr. Sanford, who received an MBA from the University of Virginia, was a real-estate broker before forming his own leasing and brokerage company in flourishing coastal Charleston, S.C. Though a multimillionaire himself, Mr. Sanford forged his political identity over the past 15 years around moral virtue and frugality.
Joined in the moral virtue department (and dalliance) by Senator Ensign, and thrice-married Speaker Gingrich and Mayor Guiliani. What a group.
After winning election to Congress in 1994, Mr. Sanford voted to impeach President Bill Clinton after his deceptions regarding an affair with White House intern Monica Lewinsky. Around the same time, he said he struggled with whether to support Rep. Bob Livingston, who was in line to be House speaker when he acknowledged extramarital affairs. "We as a party want to hold ourselves to high standards, period," Mr. Sanford said during a 1998 interview with the Associated Press.
Period.
NY Post front page: Runaway gov: Cry for me, Argentina. - Lust and found!
South Carolina Gov. Mark Sanford takes the oath of office for a second term with his wife, Jenny, and four sons, standing by, on Jan. 10, 2007.
State Sen. John Land, leader of the South Carolina Senate's Democrats, stopped short of calling for Mr. Sanford to resign but questioned whether the governor could be effective in office. He is prohibited by law from seeking a third term.
"The position he's taken the whole time he's been in office is, 'I'm smarter than the rest, I'm more religious than the rest, I'm more godly than the rest,'" Mr. Land said. "I just don't see how he can come back and be a sinner like the rest of us and function."
Amen.
Mr. Sanford, who received an MBA from the University of Virginia, was a real-estate broker before forming his own leasing and brokerage company in flourishing coastal Charleston, S.C. Though a multimillionaire himself, Mr. Sanford forged his political identity over the past 15 years around moral virtue and frugality.
Joined in the moral virtue department (and dalliance) by Senator Ensign, and thrice-married Speaker Gingrich and Mayor Guiliani. What a group.
After winning election to Congress in 1994, Mr. Sanford voted to impeach President Bill Clinton after his deceptions regarding an affair with White House intern Monica Lewinsky. Around the same time, he said he struggled with whether to support Rep. Bob Livingston, who was in line to be House speaker when he acknowledged extramarital affairs. "We as a party want to hold ourselves to high standards, period," Mr. Sanford said during a 1998 interview with the Associated Press.
Period.
Wednesday, June 24, 2009
Another holy man falls
“I hurt a lot of different folks,” Gov. Mark Sanford said during a news conference at the statehouse in Columbia, S.C.
Another holier-than-thou Republican right-winger falls. One amazing aspect is that a couple of months ago he was jousting with the President over stimulus funds. COuldn't this jerk realize he shoulda kept a low profile? Putz.
Mark Sanford, the governor of South Carolina, said he had conducted an extramarital affair with a woman in Argentina, ending a mystery over his weeklong disappearance that had infuriated lawmakers and seemed to put his rising political career in jeopardy. He apologized for the affair and the deception surrounding his trip in a rambling, nationally televised news conference Wednesday afternoon.
Seemed? What does he have a chance for now? School board? Not even that.
Governor Sanford, 49, admitted that he had been in Buenos Aires since Thursday, not hiking on the Appalachian Trail as his staff had told reporters. In revealing an affair that had gone on for about a year — and which he said he had disclosed to his wife, Jenny, five months ago — he said: “This was selfishness on my part.”
That's humble of him, to admit selfishness.
Mr. Sanford announced on Wednesday that as a result, he was resigning his position as chairman of the Republican Governors Association. The association soon after announced that Mississippi Gov. Haley Barbour would become chairman.
Just as Senator Ensign did recently, when he admitted to an affair, and resigned from the Republican Senate campaign committee, Sanford, selfishly, did not resign as Governor (and, similarly selfishly, Ensign did not resign his Senate seat).
He pleaded with reporters not to pester his family: “I would ask for y’all’s indulgence, not for me, but for Jenny and the boys.” Jenny Sanford, 46, was not in attendance at the news conference. She issued a statement later in the day saying that while she loves her husband, she asked him to leave the family two weeks ago in a trial separation. “When I found out about my husband’s infidelity I worked immediately to first seek reconciliation through forgiveness, and then to work diligently to repair our marriage,” she said. “We reached a point where I felt it was important to look my sons in the eyes and maintain my dignity, self-respect, and my basic sense of right and wrong.” Because of the separation, she said, she did not know where he was in the last week.
No one seemed to know; that should help sink his career and ambitions.
In an interview with The State newspaper of Columbia, on Wednesday morning, Mr. Sanford said he had taken an unplanned trip to the South American country to recharge after a difficult legislative session in which he battled with lawmakers over accepting a portion of the federal stimulus funding. He had considered hiking the trail, he said. “But I said, no, I wanted to do something exotic,” Mr. Sanford told The State. “It’s a great city.” Only at the news conference did he reveal why he traveled there.
A great city? Well, perhaps so, but his choosing it seems, and should, perhaps, have seemed, well, curious.
The newspaper has this: Exclusive: Emails between Sanford, woman in Argentina
Mr. Sanford created a media frenzy on Monday when his staff acknowledged that they could not reach him. His wife told The Associated Press that he had gone somewhere over the Father’s Day weekend, but she did not know where and she was not concerned.
Only later did the governor reveal that he had told his wife and her parents several months earlier. He said that “in a formal sense,” he and his wife were not separated.
What does in damnation does that mean?
Mr. Sanford is the third sitting governor to become the central figure in a major scandal in recent years. Gov. Eliot L. Spitzer, Democrat of New York, resigned a few days after his involvement with prostitutes was revealed in March 2008. Gov. Rod R. Blagojevich, Democrat of Illinois, clung to office for weeks after being accused by prosecutors of influence-peddling, including trying to sell the Senate seat vacated by President Barack Obama; he was impeached and removed from office by the state legislature on Jan. 29.
3 out of 50? 6% -- is that good, or bad?
A reporter tried to ask Mr. Sanford at the end of the news conference whether he would resign his office, but Mr. Sanford ignored the question.
Ignored it? Selfish, no?
Scott Huffmon, a political science professor at Winthrop University in Rock Hill, S.C., said it was unclear whether there would be pressure on the governor to resign. “His opponents are sitting back trying to figure out if they’d be better off with a completely emasculated governor to deal with or if they’d be better off with Andre Bauer,” said Mr. Huffmon, referring to the lieutenant governor who would take office if Mr. Sanford resigned.
Emasculated seems a particularly appropriate word in this context.
Whenever he talks political ideology he always comes out as the smartest guy in the room, but he hasn’t been a holier-than-thou moralist on social issues,” Mr. Huffmon said.
Good for him.
Mr. Sanford’s Democratic rivals in the capital immediately pounced on the apparent confusion in the statements issued by the governor’s office. “The people of this state deserve complete honesty from Governor Sanford,” said State Senator John C. Land III, the Senate Democratic leader, in a statement issued this morning before the news conference.
Complete honesty seems a dangerous term for a politician to use.
Mr. Sanford has long been known as an iconoclast. As a congressman, he slept on a futon in his office. To showcase his opposition to pork-barrel spending, he once brought two live piglets onto the floor of the state legislature.
The question that needs asking is if he slept alone on that futon (and, perhaps, if it was an Argentinian futon).
The admission by Mr. Sanford appeared to severely damage his chances for national political office. “I think you’ve got one less contender for president,” said Charles E. Cook Jr., editor of The Cook Political Report, adding that Mr. Sanford may be able to complete his term as governor, but could not expect to climb the ladder. “You don’t leave this behind — you really can’t.”
Appeared? I'd say.
Another holier-than-thou Republican right-winger falls. One amazing aspect is that a couple of months ago he was jousting with the President over stimulus funds. COuldn't this jerk realize he shoulda kept a low profile? Putz.
Mark Sanford, the governor of South Carolina, said he had conducted an extramarital affair with a woman in Argentina, ending a mystery over his weeklong disappearance that had infuriated lawmakers and seemed to put his rising political career in jeopardy. He apologized for the affair and the deception surrounding his trip in a rambling, nationally televised news conference Wednesday afternoon.
Seemed? What does he have a chance for now? School board? Not even that.
Governor Sanford, 49, admitted that he had been in Buenos Aires since Thursday, not hiking on the Appalachian Trail as his staff had told reporters. In revealing an affair that had gone on for about a year — and which he said he had disclosed to his wife, Jenny, five months ago — he said: “This was selfishness on my part.”
That's humble of him, to admit selfishness.
Mr. Sanford announced on Wednesday that as a result, he was resigning his position as chairman of the Republican Governors Association. The association soon after announced that Mississippi Gov. Haley Barbour would become chairman.
Just as Senator Ensign did recently, when he admitted to an affair, and resigned from the Republican Senate campaign committee, Sanford, selfishly, did not resign as Governor (and, similarly selfishly, Ensign did not resign his Senate seat).
He pleaded with reporters not to pester his family: “I would ask for y’all’s indulgence, not for me, but for Jenny and the boys.” Jenny Sanford, 46, was not in attendance at the news conference. She issued a statement later in the day saying that while she loves her husband, she asked him to leave the family two weeks ago in a trial separation. “When I found out about my husband’s infidelity I worked immediately to first seek reconciliation through forgiveness, and then to work diligently to repair our marriage,” she said. “We reached a point where I felt it was important to look my sons in the eyes and maintain my dignity, self-respect, and my basic sense of right and wrong.” Because of the separation, she said, she did not know where he was in the last week.
No one seemed to know; that should help sink his career and ambitions.
In an interview with The State newspaper of Columbia, on Wednesday morning, Mr. Sanford said he had taken an unplanned trip to the South American country to recharge after a difficult legislative session in which he battled with lawmakers over accepting a portion of the federal stimulus funding. He had considered hiking the trail, he said. “But I said, no, I wanted to do something exotic,” Mr. Sanford told The State. “It’s a great city.” Only at the news conference did he reveal why he traveled there.
A great city? Well, perhaps so, but his choosing it seems, and should, perhaps, have seemed, well, curious.
The newspaper has this: Exclusive: Emails between Sanford, woman in Argentina
Mr. Sanford created a media frenzy on Monday when his staff acknowledged that they could not reach him. His wife told The Associated Press that he had gone somewhere over the Father’s Day weekend, but she did not know where and she was not concerned.
Only later did the governor reveal that he had told his wife and her parents several months earlier. He said that “in a formal sense,” he and his wife were not separated.
What does in damnation does that mean?
Mr. Sanford is the third sitting governor to become the central figure in a major scandal in recent years. Gov. Eliot L. Spitzer, Democrat of New York, resigned a few days after his involvement with prostitutes was revealed in March 2008. Gov. Rod R. Blagojevich, Democrat of Illinois, clung to office for weeks after being accused by prosecutors of influence-peddling, including trying to sell the Senate seat vacated by President Barack Obama; he was impeached and removed from office by the state legislature on Jan. 29.
3 out of 50? 6% -- is that good, or bad?
A reporter tried to ask Mr. Sanford at the end of the news conference whether he would resign his office, but Mr. Sanford ignored the question.
Ignored it? Selfish, no?
Scott Huffmon, a political science professor at Winthrop University in Rock Hill, S.C., said it was unclear whether there would be pressure on the governor to resign. “His opponents are sitting back trying to figure out if they’d be better off with a completely emasculated governor to deal with or if they’d be better off with Andre Bauer,” said Mr. Huffmon, referring to the lieutenant governor who would take office if Mr. Sanford resigned.
Emasculated seems a particularly appropriate word in this context.
Whenever he talks political ideology he always comes out as the smartest guy in the room, but he hasn’t been a holier-than-thou moralist on social issues,” Mr. Huffmon said.
Good for him.
Mr. Sanford’s Democratic rivals in the capital immediately pounced on the apparent confusion in the statements issued by the governor’s office. “The people of this state deserve complete honesty from Governor Sanford,” said State Senator John C. Land III, the Senate Democratic leader, in a statement issued this morning before the news conference.
Complete honesty seems a dangerous term for a politician to use.
Mr. Sanford has long been known as an iconoclast. As a congressman, he slept on a futon in his office. To showcase his opposition to pork-barrel spending, he once brought two live piglets onto the floor of the state legislature.
The question that needs asking is if he slept alone on that futon (and, perhaps, if it was an Argentinian futon).
The admission by Mr. Sanford appeared to severely damage his chances for national political office. “I think you’ve got one less contender for president,” said Charles E. Cook Jr., editor of The Cook Political Report, adding that Mr. Sanford may be able to complete his term as governor, but could not expect to climb the ladder. “You don’t leave this behind — you really can’t.”
Appeared? I'd say.
Saturday, April 4, 2009
Rejecting Aid, One Governor Irks His Own
He's already running for President, and is so far to the right that he might fall off the edge.
Related
The Caucus: South Carolina Will Apply for Most of Its Stimulus Money (April 3, 2009)
For a millionaire, Gov. Mark Sanford has a reputation for frugality that borders on the extreme.
Former employees say he has been known to require his staff to use both sides of a Post-it note. When Mr. Sanford was a congressman, he slept on a futon in his office and returned his housing allowance. And when, after he moved into the Governor’s Mansion here, tax collectors declared his family’s home on Sullivan’s Island a secondary residence subject to a higher tax rate, he appealed and won.
Seems a bit anal-retentive.
Now, with his threat to refuse more than $700 million in federal money to stimulate the economy, Mr. Sanford’s contrarian streak is taking him from South Carolina, which is second only to Michigan in unemployment, to the national stage.
On Friday, just before the Obama administration’s deadline, Mr. Sanford became the last governor to certify that he would accept some stimulus money, but declared that he would not accept the $700 million largely designated for education unless the legislature agreed to use a similar amount to pay down the state’s debt. (He did, however, accept most of the remaining $2.1 billion for Medicaid, transportation and other uses. Only Mr. Sanford and Gov. Sarah Palin of Alaska have rejected the education money.)
Extreme right wingers.
Through the tumult, Mr. Sanford has remained unperturbed. “I think the fatal flaw of a lot of people in politics is that they want to be loved,” he said Friday in an interview in his office. “I sleep like a baby at night.”
Babies can be colicky and burp and cry through the night.
Wednesday, February 25, 2009
First Lady’s Guests Reflect Speech Themes
Michelle Obama, center, flanked by, from left, Dina Leach, Ty’Sheoma Bethea, Officer Richard DeCoatsworth of the Philadelphia police and Jill Biden.
More Photos >
February 25, 2009
First Lady’s Guests Reflect Speech Themes
By MICHAEL FALCONE
WASHINGTON — Seated in Michelle Obama’s box on Tuesday night were living symbols of the ideas in President Obama’s first speech to a joint session of Congress, including a bank executive, Leonard Abess, who shared a vast fortune with his employees, and an eighth-grade student from South Carolina, Ty’Sheoma Bethea, who in a letter had urged Congress not to neglect education financing.
Mr. Obama used a line in Ty’Sheoma’s letter, “We are not quitters,” as one of his closing themes.
Mr. Abess split $60 million among several hundred current and former workers at his bank.
Other guests sitting with Mrs. Obama included Lilly M. Ledbetter, whose Supreme Court case resulted in Congressional action to prevent wage discrimination, and Jonathon N. James, an Army veteran who was wounded in Afghanistan.
Bob Dixson, the mayor of Greensburg, Kan., which was destroyed by a tornado in May 2008, was also invited. Mr. Obama praised the spirit of that community, which is being redeveloped as an energy-efficient “green town.”
Two other guests were sophomores at Washington high schools, Akrem Muzemil and Francisco Rodriguez. Both plan on attending college and are interested in studying engineering.
Speaker Nancy Pelosi invited Capt. Chesley B. Sullenberger III, the pilot who safely landed a jetliner in the Hudson River last month, saving 150 passengers and four other crew members. Mr. Sullenberger’s first officer and a flight attendant also sat in the speaker’s box.
Ms. Pelosi also chose to give two of the prime seats to labor leaders, John J. Sweeney, president of the A.F.L.-C.I.O., and Anna Burger, secretary-treasurer of the Service Employees International Union.
More Photos >
February 25, 2009
First Lady’s Guests Reflect Speech Themes
By MICHAEL FALCONE
WASHINGTON — Seated in Michelle Obama’s box on Tuesday night were living symbols of the ideas in President Obama’s first speech to a joint session of Congress, including a bank executive, Leonard Abess, who shared a vast fortune with his employees, and an eighth-grade student from South Carolina, Ty’Sheoma Bethea, who in a letter had urged Congress not to neglect education financing.
Mr. Obama used a line in Ty’Sheoma’s letter, “We are not quitters,” as one of his closing themes.
Mr. Abess split $60 million among several hundred current and former workers at his bank.
Other guests sitting with Mrs. Obama included Lilly M. Ledbetter, whose Supreme Court case resulted in Congressional action to prevent wage discrimination, and Jonathon N. James, an Army veteran who was wounded in Afghanistan.
Bob Dixson, the mayor of Greensburg, Kan., which was destroyed by a tornado in May 2008, was also invited. Mr. Obama praised the spirit of that community, which is being redeveloped as an energy-efficient “green town.”
Two other guests were sophomores at Washington high schools, Akrem Muzemil and Francisco Rodriguez. Both plan on attending college and are interested in studying engineering.
Speaker Nancy Pelosi invited Capt. Chesley B. Sullenberger III, the pilot who safely landed a jetliner in the Hudson River last month, saving 150 passengers and four other crew members. Mr. Sullenberger’s first officer and a flight attendant also sat in the speaker’s box.
Ms. Pelosi also chose to give two of the prime seats to labor leaders, John J. Sweeney, president of the A.F.L.-C.I.O., and Anna Burger, secretary-treasurer of the Service Employees International Union.
Friday, August 1, 2008
Garden Paradise
Bishopville SC is about 50 miles away from Columbia, SC.
First picture is of downtown Bishopville, 26 May 2007; the next one is of Pearl Fryar.
A visit to Pearl Fryar's garden isn't a typical stroll in the park. Those who reach this tiny town in the heart of former cotton country will notice a live oak carved into a cube, boxwoods spelling out the word "love" and geometric shapes scattered throughout the three acres surrounding a modest ranch home. His dogwood – a tree that isn't supposed to be able to be made into topiary – looks like a pile of snowballs when in full bloom. And his signature piece – a Leyland cypress pruned and twisted into something resembling a fish skeleton – dominates his side yard. But what is most striking is that this piece of cultivated land is transforming Bishopville, bridging racial divides and becoming a source of inspiration for the thousands of people who visit it each year.
In college, Mr. Fryar joined civil-rights protests, during a time he now refers to as the "social revolution." After college and a brief stint in the Army, he worked for the National Can company in Long Island City, N.Y.
It was indeed social revolution. That is the other, the better, side of the Sixties so many people now denigrate.
In 1975, the company moved him south and eventually placed him at a manual-labor job at a factory in Bishopville. Even by the early 1980s, though, he found that the South of his youth hadn't changed as much as he had hoped. Trying to buy a house, he ran into resistance when his real-estate agent started inquiring about homes for sale. One resident, who didn't want to be his neighbor, told his agent that the problem was that blacks don't keep up their yards.
1980s!
For more than two decades, Mr. Fryar has been doing much more than proving that objection wrong. He began his project with a simple goal: to win "Garden of the Month" honors from Bishopville's Iris Garden Club. He didn't know anything about gardening, though. He worked long hours at the factory and didn't have any money to spend on plants. Someone did give him a set of gardening books, which he leafed through only to discard. "If you do what's in a book," he told me, "it won't be yours. You'll just be following what someone else has already done."
Exactly.He has created a sanctuary that has transformed not only the acres surrounding his modest home but also the community at large. Where there once was resistance to his purchase of a home, there now is love of his garden. His creation is one place in Bishopville where people black and white regularly interact. The town is even looking to revive its economy by encouraging people who come to see his garden to visit local shops. Several of his plants are now sprucing up downtown, too.
Proved the racists wrong.
"I knew I might have something here," he told me while standing in the shade of a cube-shaped live oak, "when people started to tell me I was losing it."
Saturday, June 7, 2008
The Rebel Warrior Who Governed in Peace
As I recall, he raised his own regiment, and paid in full to outfit it completely, including horses. true, or apocryphal?
Rod Andrew Jr.'s "Wade Hampton: Confederate Warrior to Southern Redeemer" is, amazingly, the fourth full-scale biography of the man in five years, but no less welcome for that. Hampton is one of those larger-than-life figures whose actions repay close attention and whose careers match pivotal moments in America's history.
Four in five years? He's becoming a cottage industry.
Before the Civil War, Hampton was a gentleman-planter who, with other members of his family, owned vast, slave-labor plantations in Mississippi and South Carolina and lived most of the time at Millwood, a resplendent property near Columbia, S.C. True to his exalted status, he was keen on his ancestors, his horses and his hunting.
A feudal baron.
Hampton notably took pains to see that his men were well cared for, receiving adequate rations, shelter and home leave. This concern for the well- being of others fits Mr. Andrew's thesis – that Southern concepts of paternalism, honor and chivalry formed Hampton's character. So, it may be said, did grim experience. Hampton buried two wives and five children. Both a brother and a son were killed in the War Between the States.
War Between the States: a curious characterization, and use of capitalization.
The term War Between the States was rarely used during the war but became common afterwards in the South.
Such self-control had been required of Hampton two decades earlier as well, in 1843, when he learned that his four sisters had been molested by their own uncle by marriage, James Henry Hammond – the sitting governor of South Carolina. It was a scandal that none dared talk about in the open for fear that it would lead to a duel. Hampton was not afraid to fight but knew that confirmation of the whisperings would ruin his beloved sisters. As it was, none was ever married. (Gov. Hammond's wife, incidentally, left him a few years later, when she learned that he had had sex with two of his slaves – a mother and her daughter.)
Quite a guy, this governor, eh?
Rod Andrew Jr.'s "Wade Hampton: Confederate Warrior to Southern Redeemer" is, amazingly, the fourth full-scale biography of the man in five years, but no less welcome for that. Hampton is one of those larger-than-life figures whose actions repay close attention and whose careers match pivotal moments in America's history.
Four in five years? He's becoming a cottage industry.
Before the Civil War, Hampton was a gentleman-planter who, with other members of his family, owned vast, slave-labor plantations in Mississippi and South Carolina and lived most of the time at Millwood, a resplendent property near Columbia, S.C. True to his exalted status, he was keen on his ancestors, his horses and his hunting.
A feudal baron.
Hampton notably took pains to see that his men were well cared for, receiving adequate rations, shelter and home leave. This concern for the well- being of others fits Mr. Andrew's thesis – that Southern concepts of paternalism, honor and chivalry formed Hampton's character. So, it may be said, did grim experience. Hampton buried two wives and five children. Both a brother and a son were killed in the War Between the States.
War Between the States: a curious characterization, and use of capitalization.
The term War Between the States was rarely used during the war but became common afterwards in the South.
- The Confederate government avoided the term "civil war" and referred in official documents to the "War between the Confederate States of America and the United States of America.There are a handful of known references during the war to "the war between the states."
- European diplomacy produced a similar formula for avoiding the phrase "civil war. Queen Victoria's proclamation of British neutrality referred to "hostilities ... between the Government of the United States of America and certain States styling themselves the Confederate States of America"
Such self-control had been required of Hampton two decades earlier as well, in 1843, when he learned that his four sisters had been molested by their own uncle by marriage, James Henry Hammond – the sitting governor of South Carolina. It was a scandal that none dared talk about in the open for fear that it would lead to a duel. Hampton was not afraid to fight but knew that confirmation of the whisperings would ruin his beloved sisters. As it was, none was ever married. (Gov. Hammond's wife, incidentally, left him a few years later, when she learned that he had had sex with two of his slaves – a mother and her daughter.)
Quite a guy, this governor, eh?
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