Sanford Has Affair, Is Accused of Hypocrisy by Hypocrites
ThinkProgress, the incredibly objective blogging wing of the left-wing and George Soros-founded Center for American Progress, asks asks:
Will Republicans ‘Ask Questions’ Of Sanford, Rather Than ‘Circle The Wagons For One Of Our Tribe’?
They are, of course, talking about the revelation that Mark Sanford’s absence this week was because he was in Argentina seeing a woman with whom he was having an affair. His wife had known about it for some time and the two had agreed to a trial separation, which is why she didn’t know where he was when the press came nosing around.
I’d be willing to make the ThinkProgress folks a deal. I’ll “ask questions” if they defend Sanford even half as hard as the left blindly defended Bill Clinton when he was out propositioning (and worse) every woman over the age of 18 within 50 feet of him. I’m thinking they won’t be very eager to accept my offer.
See, here’s the thing. Mark Sanford, like a lot of public figures on the right, was an easy target. He has principles, stood up for them publicly, then made what anyone would admit is a blazingly-stupid but very common human mistake. He set a standard of conduct, tried to live up to it, and screwed it up.
That, of course, makes him an object of derision to the left, whose icons rarely attempt to transcend their own moral or personal flaws. It’s painfully easy to become a laughingstock to the left — simply set a goal, professional or moral (but especially moral), encourage others to meet the same goal, then fail. On the other hand, it is perfectly fine to my leftist friends if a man who had admitted that he still smokes scolds the rest of us for smoking then uses the government’s considerable coercive power to make us stop.
Mark Sanford is indeed a hypocrite, though I have no doubt he will try again to vanquish his demons. However, I won’t be entertaining any lectures from the rest of the hypocrites on the left who have nothing but criticism for him yet say nothing of their own stunning hypocrisies.
Other Posts of Interest:
- Governor Sanford Demonstrates We Can Survive a Few Days Without Chief Executives
- One Last Look at the Playboy Thumbs-Up to Rape
- The Misogyny of the Left On Display Again
Category: Political Pontifications, The Social Issues
Note to RedState (And Other Assorted Wingnuts):
How to Stop the Gloating
http://is.gd/1cuvO
Hint… Keep your legislation OUT of our bedrooms.
So, blackmail, huh? Classy. Not intellectually honest, but real classy.
The party of "high morals" that tells everyone else how to run their lives… is always fuckin around?
Not intellectually honest?
That rich, Jimmie. Honest to God. That's quite a stretch.
Like the President and smoking, yes?
Not intellectually honest, like I said. Now, go play with your lefty friends. Don't have any more time for your hypocrisy.
We'll keep our legislation out your bedrooms when you lot agree to keep your effin' bedrooms out of public society. Have sex with whomever, whatever you want, just don't ask to redefine marriage. Don't want your perversions to be public business, don't make them so.
"Mark Sanford is indeed a hypocrite,"
Disagree with you here. A hypocrite would have said "it wasn't wrong (for me) because of …xxx(whatever)". So, for example, Clinton smoked marijuana, "but didn't inhale". Clinton didn't "have sex with that woman" although by virtually anybody else's definition, yes he did. _His_ definition, however, allowed him to deny it. "It depends on what the meaning of 'is' is".
Sanford has basically said "I did wrong". In other words, there is a standard and he admits he failed to live up to that standard. He is not a hypocrite. _Nobody_ can live up to our ideals all the time – that's the bind that liberals want to put us into. We fail to be perfect, therefore we're hypocrites, therefore there's no point in having ideals.
Don't get sucked into thinking that way. Sanford fell. He shouldn't have, but he did. People are disappointed in him – with cause – but it doesn't mean that he's less capable than he was. Whether he and his wife can repair their marriage is up to them. Everybody else should stay out of it.
If you require perfect men to govern us, we'll have no one able to fulfill the requirements. I'd rather have a man with failings who admits his failings, than one who claims to have none or one who simply doesn't have standards or ideals in which he can fail.
That would be a very good point if Mark Sanford advocated keeping one's morality to one's self. Obviously, we all set moral standards for ourselves and don't always live up to them. Sometimes we even do it publicly. I set some very unusual moral standards for myself that I certainly don't expect anyone else to uphold. But that's the difference. Mark Sanford wants to write his moral standards into law, and expects the rest of us to obey the laws he proposes. But he won't expect himself to obey them. I expect a higher moral standard from myself than I think the law should expect. He expects the law to enforce a higher standard than he himself can achieve. This has nothing to do with his personal behavior because I don't care what he does. And I don't think he should resign. But he should stop telling other people how to behave. Jesus said it right: "let he without sin cast the first stone." Mark Sanford has cast many stones at me, and I've never cast one back at him. Yet I live up to a higher moral standard than he does. I don't tell other people how do behave, so what right does he have to tell me how to behave? And what right does he have to advocate laws to enforce my behavior?
>>Mark Sanford wants to write his moral standards into law, and expects the rest of us to obey the laws he proposes. >>
Really? I'd really like some links to something on this…
Support for DOMA, DADT, Abstinence Only requirements, and his own state's Adultery law (which he avoided by leaving the country). His disdain for birth control (which he obviously used), and his support for anti-pornography legislation. Oh yeah, and he wanted to impeach Clinton for the same indiscretions. I'm guessing he doesn't want to impeach himself right now. For good reason. These kind of situations should be private and have no basis for determining whether one should hold office. I'm totally with Gov. Sanford on staying in office. And so are the vast majority of Democrats. He should not have left the country without telling his staff where he was and not turning over authority to the Lieutenant Governor. But that's a pretty minor offense. You can't do that as President, obviously. But as Governor, it's not a huge deal. As Governor, he doesn't hold "The Football."
I'm sorry, but this man does support legislation that does affect other people's consensual sexual habits. And nobody should support that unless they can live up to it on their own. He fails that standard. I support a simple standard on sexual practices: If it's consensual, it's cool. I hold myself to a higher standard, but I never expect anyone else to. He does, and fails.
If you want links, do it yourself, you have better search engines than I do. I only have Google, which can't look beyond recent headlines. I only have my memory, which is quite astounding, actually. I can't always remember what happened five minutes ago, but if I do, I'll remember it forever. As vividly as it happened, random hand gestures and all.
And let's face it, if he thinks gay marriage will undermine the foundations of marriage, he needs to explain why his actions didn't undermine them. He obviously screwed up his marriage with his own actions. Much more than Andrew Sullivan marrying his boyfriend. The sanctity of marriage is clearly under threat, but it's because heterosexual couples routinely cheat on each other. Not because two men want to be in the committed relationship that heterosexuals usually don't have. I am friends with only one gay couple in a marriage. One of them was a great friend from college. He met the love of his life twenty years ago just after graduation. They are married now. As for the heterosexual relationships of my friends, almost all of them failed, but when they got married, they stayed that way and didn't cheat. The concept of consent works. The concept that you must marry a person of the opposite sex and then be faithful doesn't. It's just not human nature.
"they stayed that way and didn’t cheat"
Well, except for one guy, but he's a Republican. One of the few I know. One aspect I've always seen from Republicans is this: complete disdain for the female population. And he has it.