Comments on: The governor regrets.

By: joodyb

joodyb — Fri, 26 Jun 2009 02:42:42 +0000

why does anybody care? other than that he is the ceo of a state and South Carolina gets to be a little embarrassed – again?
I remain more interested in why the State didn’t dog the email thing in December when the whiff of foreign travel on the taxpayer dime curled, but otherwise, the dirt on this guy points to yet another boy with a weird upbringing who seems to have turned out kind of arrested emotionally in league with a little megalomania fueled by his earlier days on Wall Street.
i’m with jttmo in that my bad day is your nervous breakdown. some of us are better at muddling through.
that presser was painful, but man, he’s no novice. he shoulda handled it or had it handled.

By: Rana

Rana — Thu, 25 Jun 2009 22:19:18 +0000

mark, you’re making the classic error of assuming that the only source of morality, or understanding of good or bad conduct, is Biblical.

One doesn’t have to be a Christian, or even religious, to know that betraying one’s promises, whether personal or civic, isn’t a good thing. Criticizing a public official for imposing his personal religious standards on people who don’t belong to his religious group or subscribe to his religious beliefs is a different animal entirely, especially if that official can’t even manage to uphold them himself.

It’s bad enough when such persons try to inscribe their personal beliefs into law while living according to those beliefs themselves; when they insist on legalizing a higher morality for non-believers than for themselves, it’s not simply hypocrisy, it’s downright offensive.

By: ROgirl

ROgirl — Thu, 25 Jun 2009 21:43:06 +0000

As usual, Jon Stewart summed things up aptly: just another conservative politician with a liberal penis.

By: mark

mark — Thu, 25 Jun 2009 21:38:15 +0000

Careful, Catherine. That sort of absolutist rhetoric will get you accused of trying to dictate acceptance of your arbitrary, religious, sexist, racist, moralizing standards and policies. Nobody is an exemplar of biblical morality so nobody should speak of good or bad conduct.

Progressive, sophisticated, worldly women know that men are not expected to behave well. Men are expected to not claim they will or should behave well.

By: Catherine

Catherine — Thu, 25 Jun 2009 21:21:10 +0000

But jeff b, what about upholding your vows? If someone can’t uphold his personal vows, can we, the electorate, count on him to uphold his public vows?

And, I think the choice you outline is a false one. We can have the whole package.

By: baldheadeddork

baldheadeddork — Thu, 25 Jun 2009 20:53:31 +0000

@jeff borden: I would say that it’s just as important for politicians to grow up about the sex lives of the country. Until those politicians do mature, I have no problem with pointing and laughing hysterically when they are caught in their hypocrisy. Never underestimate the curative powers of ridicule.

By: jeff borden

jeff borden — Thu, 25 Jun 2009 20:33:18 +0000

Except in cases where the behavior interferes with the duties of the office, which is clearly true with Sanford, I’d really like to see our country grow up about the sex lives of politicians.

Was FDR any less a great president because he may have had a fling? Was Ike any less of a great military commander and excellent president because he allegedly had female company during the time he was in command of the European theater?

George W. Bush confronted his alcoholism and quit. He appears to have a wonderful marriage to Laura and raised two decent young women. He leads an incredibly healthy lifestyle. He’s clearly very religious. And he was an absolute disaster as president.

We might take a step in the right direction if both political parties, particularly the GOP, stop acting like they are the exemplars of Biblical morality. I’d rather have a randy political representative who is smart, educated and capable than a pillar of morality who is dumb, unworldly and incompetent.

By: paddyo'

paddyo' — Thu, 25 Jun 2009 20:30:17 +0000

Am I the only one who read the Slate item Nancy cited as not so much a defense of Sanford as a critique of the vociferous and vituperative “quality” of the condemnations, joke-tellings, etc.? Everything Sanford did was wrong, and he deserves whatever comes to him. But does that make the bottom-feeding level of discourse in the condemnations (present company here accepted, of course!) right?
Just wondering …

By: James

James — Thu, 25 Jun 2009 20:24:01 +0000

Sanford… He’s a Democrat, right?

By: Rana

Rana — Thu, 25 Jun 2009 20:20:22 +0000

I can feel sorry for him as a person, but I can’t muster up any sympathy for the public official. When you’re in a position to use your power to dictate that people live up to one religion’s arbitrary and sexist moral standards, and you can’t even manage that in your own life, you’re not only hypocritical, but cruel. I’d hope that his experiences would make him more sympathetic to the human foibles of other people, and thus to temper his absolutist rhetoric and policies, but I doubt it will happen.