When your husband calls somebody other than you his "soul mate," and talks openly about having the fall back in love with you? It's time to admit it's over. (Just ask any of Rudy Giuliani's former wives, including the one who was dumped on television...) Meanwhile, the freshness date has clearly expired on Mark Sanford's political future. Or has it...?
Viewer's note: I'm not sure what was going on in my head this episode, but I clearly had Venezuela on the brain. I think Hugo Chavez put a hex on me ... So kids, the word of the day is "Argentina."
"For most Christians, at some point in your marriage, if you're married long enough, you do it because that's what we're called to do _ out of obedience instead of out of passion. And I think that's where Mark and Jenny are right now."
That's Warren "Cubby" Culbertson, friend and "spiritual advisor" to SC Gov. Mark Sanford and his wife Jenny. What he describes has got to be the saddest commentary on marriage I've ever heard, and I certainly hope it's not true "for most Christians" (if so, time to become a Buddhist!) Still, it's one more aspect of the TMI that's dripping all over this case (including this wrenching tell-all to the AP by Jenny Sanford.) Jeez, this marriage is becoming a more uncomfortable reality show than "John and Kate Plus 8" (and an un-pretty version of Brad, Jen and Angelina...)
COLUMBIA, S.C. – When South Carolina Gov. Mark Sanford cheated on his wife, he also betrayed his top political adviser.
First lady Jenny Sanford told the world in a statement Wednesday that she had sent her husband packing nearly 15 years after she launched his political career.
Mark Sanford apologized to her and their four sons at a tearful press conference where he admitted a yearlong affair with a friend in Argentina whom he had visited on a secret trip.
His wife said in her own statement later that she kicked him out of the house two weeks ago and asked him not to speak to her while she tried to come to grips with his infidelity.
It was an abrupt and stunning — even if temporary — split for a couple who helped shape the state's political landscape.
During Mark Sanford's first gubernatorial campaign in 2002, Jenny ran the show from the basement of their Sullivans Island beach house while he fretted as the wind blew his charts off of tripods during outdoor press conferences.
And perhaps more importantly:
Jenny Sanford is a millionaire whose family fortune comes from the Skil Corp. power tool company.
Yep. He's a goner. Especially since Jenny Sanford's statement included the following:
I personally believe that the greatest legacy I will leave behind in this world is not the job I held on Wall Street, or the campaigns I managed for Mark, or the work I have done as First Lady or even the philanthropic activities in which I have been routinely engaged. Instead, the greatest legacy I will leave in this world is the character of the children I, or we, leave behind. It is for that reason that I deeply regret the recent actions of my husband Mark, and their potential damage to our children.
I believe wholeheartedly in the sanctity, dignity and importance of the institution of marriage. I believe that has been consistently reflected in my actions. 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. 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. I therefore asked my husband to leave two weeks ago.
This trial separation was agreed to with the goal of ultimately strengthening our marriage. During this short separation it was agreed that Mark would not contact us. I kept this separation quiet out of respect of his public office and reputation, and in hopes of keeping our children from just this type of public exposure. Because of this separation, I did not know where he was in the past week.
The fact that Sanford spent his period of what was supposed to be reflection and healing, crying in the arms of his mistress cannot bode well for his financial ... I mean marital ... future. Read Jenny Sanford's full statement here.
Fox 'News' does it again: Sanford labeled a Democrat
If this had been the first time the network has attached an erroneous Democratic label to a scandalized pol, it could pass for a mistake. But for Fox, it isn't the first time...
The State has them, and you know? I kind of feel awful reading them. Way too much information ... and the newspaper offers additional details that, despite my knee-jerk Democratic schadenfreude over seeing another moralizing Republican bite the political dust, make me wonder whether this particular angle of the story is indeed newsworthy. The details in question:
Below are excerpts of e-mails, obtained by The State newspaper in December, between Gov. Mark Sanford's personal e-mail account and Maria, a woman in Buenos Aires, Argentina.
The State has removed the woman's full name and other personal details, including her address, e-mail address and children's names.
First of all, since the emails came from his personal account, and not the account used by Sanford as governor (at taxpayer expense) how are these emails news? Second, the deeply personal nature of them can only be of interest for the purposes of either voyeurism or ridicule. And third, if the paper had these emails in December, why didn't the paper report on Sanford's affair then? Surely they knew he was a potential 2012 prospect back then. And the fact that The State had these emails sure explains why they were such Johnny on the spots in grabbing that "exclusive" interview with him at the airport upon his return to the U.S. this morning. One is tempted to ask "what did The State know, and when did they know it?"
At issue, in the end, is not Sanford's personal life. That's between him and his wife (and cable TV, which wouldn't let this go if it was on fire. Too juicy.) But all the icky personal stuff is distracting, I think, from the central point, which is the lying: to his staff, and through them, to his constituents, and the rank irresponsibility of a chief executive falling off grid without taking the appropriate steps to ensure the continuity of government. That and the irony of a moralizing conservative who thought his state too upright to accept money for the unemployed turning out to be a rank sinner in his own right. ... But good luck keeping it to that.
Sanford: 'I spent five days of my life crying in Argentina'
If you missed the Mark Sanford press conference, you missed a hell of a news moment. Sanford rambled and rambled and rambled, about God and his family, and his friends, and all the people he let down, and then he announced that for the past year or so, he has been cheating on his wife with a woman in Argentina.
The liveblog as it happened here. (and yes, I managed to say "wow" instead of sh--")
Full story here. Sanford is done. I guess the right's John Edwards jokes are too. Not only has Sanford admitted to running off with his mistress, he essentially is admitting to lying to his staff in order to get them to help him cover it up.
Wow.
BTW, Sanford is being given lots of credit by people on television for his "candor." But I think you'd have to call this "rolling candor," since earlier today, he was still claiming that he was on an exotic adventure trip.
UPDATE: in case you missed it, peep the video. If you listen through to the end, you'll hear what sounds like a basic admission that Sanford intentionally misled his staff, resulting in their lying to the media. And when he came back, Sanford continued to lie, telling The State newspaper that he'd decided to toss the Appalachian trail aside for a "more exotic trip" joyriding down the Argentine coast. Drip, drip, drip...
Mark Sanford is back! ... and he wasn't on the Appalachian trail. He was out of the freaking country (in Buenos Aires, Argentina, no less.)
Sanford said he had considered hiking on the Appalachian Trail, an activity he said he has enjoyed since he was a high school student. "But I said 'no' I wanted to do something exotic," Sanford said "... It's a great city."
... Sanford said he has taken adventure trips for years to unwind. He has visited such places as the coast of Turkey, the Greek Isles and South America. He was with friends sometimes and sometimes by himself.News conference in minutes.
Huh??? Are we talking with clothes or without!? Sanford says he doesn't know how this whole thing got blown out of proportion, and he seems to think it's perfectly normal for the chief executive of a state to exit the country without telling his staff, his wife, or frankly anyone, where he's going. Helloooo 2012!
Sanford press conference any minute.
Ane by the way, if you think the Sanford story has stopped getting weird, consider this: Sanford claims he was driving by himself along the Argentine coast. Okay, however:
Trying to drive along the coast could frustrate a weekend visitor to Argentina. In Buenos Aires, the Avenida Costanera is the only coastal road, and it's less than two miles long. Reaching coastal resorts to the south requires a drive of nearly four hours on an inland highway with views of endless cattle ranches. To the north is a river delta of islands reached only by boat.
A spokesman for Argentina's immigration agency wouldn't comment Wednesday on whether Sanford entered the country, citing privacy laws.
Hopefully at his presser, which we're still waiting on, he will explain why he told his staff he'd be hiking, why he didn't update them if he changed his mind and decided to leave the United States, and why he didn't place the lieutenant governor in charge during his absence. He might also explain how he proposed to drive this so-called coastal route, alone, with or without a map, and without any obvious way of being found should he get lost.
UPDATE: 2:26 - Sanford is talking now, and apologizing to his wife, kids and right now, his staff, saying he let them all down, and let down "people all across the state." He stressed the importance of "being a husband and father" and said that's job one (unlike job 2, which is driving aimlessly down the rambling coastline of Argentina, mostly off-road...)
2:28 - Sanford is now apologizing to his friend Tom Davis. And he's apologizing to his in-laws. (Wow, this is a lot of apologies!) His rambling apology to the in-laws includes strange references to past? internal struggles about "where my heart is." What??? Is this guy dumping his wife or what?
2:29 - Sanford just said "if you look at God's laws, they're designed to protect people from ourselves..." and that "the biggest self is self." Oh lord, is he gonna announce that he's gay?
2:30 - Oh, snap! Sanford just admitted that he's been cheating on his wife. Paraphrasing: "I've been unfaithful to my wife. I've developed a relationship with what started as a dear, dear friend, from Argentina ... it began very innocently as I suspect these things do, in just a casual email back and forth ... but here recently devleoped in this past year into something much more than that. As a consequence, I hurt her, I hurt you all. I hurt my boys. I hurt friends like Tom Davis. ... "
Wow. Wow. I just missed part of the presser because my cellphone rang. But Sanford is going to resign, but so far, only from the Republican Governor's Association, due to this affair. Wow.
Mark Sanford was just doin' a little hikin' ... on naked hiking day ...
The latest 2012 GOP hopeful to go down in flames does it big. ... Big and naked:
We’re not suggesting that the formerly missing Governor of South Carolina specifically ditched his family and security detail to go hiking on Naked Hiking Day. It’s just that one of the days he hit the trail also happened to be the aforementioned holiday. [Editor’s note: This paragraph was changed to make clear that the governor’s timing was a coincidence.]
Until late yesterday, no one would say publicly where he was. Poof. He just disappeared.
The stimulus money-hating South Carolina governor (and would-be 2012 GOP presidential contender???) has flown the coop. So it's time to ask: "Have You Seen This Man?" If you have, kindly tell his wife...
... South Carolina state Senate Democratic Leader John C. Land III released this interesting statement about Mark Sanford's mysterious disappearance:
"We've been concerned by the Governor's erratic behavior for some time. We're praying for him and his family. I hope he is safe and that he contacts the First Lady and his family soon."
Milk carton, anyone?
UPDATE: Sanford's whereabouts have apparently been determined (well, sort of ... no one has actually talked to him...) His wife says she wasn't worried. I guess he disappears like this all the time???
Who's picking the Republican leadership of tomorrow? Why, it's the unsexy of today. You remember the unsexy don't you? It's El Rushbo, who topped the Boston Phoenix's unsexy list already this year, with three quarters of the year still to go!
JABBA THE NUT America’s ugliest moment of 2009? Rush Limbaugh, his man-boobs a-jiggle, bouncing at the CPAC podium to bask in the sickly glow of conservatism’s orgy of greed, avarice, and arrogance. Here, at last, was the shining image of the 21st century Republican Party: a leeringly rich Baby Boomer squatting at the top of the mountain, reaping his jollies from the suffering of those at the bottom, praying for the failure of hope. If this hypocritical and morally repugnant reformed Oxy junkie wants to discuss “failure,” maybe we should talk about his career as an NFL commentator — or the last time he detoxed off prescription smack.
How on earth did Dick "The Torturer" Cheney not make that list ... anyhoo, fast forward to today, and El Rushbo is deciding which GOP leader's boobies will be jiggling next: and it's a toss-up between Sarah Palin (go figure) and Mark "We Don't Need No Stim Money" Sanford. Jump around!
