To a pair of ancient eyes, the fallen Governor of South Carolina has the hapless look of Edward VIII giving up the throne of England in 1936 for "the woman I love," a man undone by unexpected passion after a lifetime of being trained to follow all the rules of a straight-laced society.
The bizarre details of his downfall testify to the emotions that must have overcome Mark Sanford--an Eagle Scout on his way to a presidential nomination suddenly disappearing, on Father's Day weekend no less, into his own secret world and returning to confess publicly with the dazed look of a man with no rational explanation for his behavior.
Sanford is not in the mold of Bill Clinton, John Edwards, John Ensign, David Vitter, Eliot Spitzer and all those hypocritical politicians who cheat on their wives and voters for the erotic pleasure to which they feel entitled. Impulsively running off to Argentina and getting caught is not their style.
The Republican presidential field is now left to straight arrows like Mitt Romney, Sarah Palin and other superior figures of personal morality, but there is a pang over the loss of a middle-aged romantic writer of e-mails like this:
"You have a particular grace and calm that I adore. You have a level of sophistication that so fitting with your beauty. I could digress and say that you have the ability to give magnificent gentle kisses, or that I love your tan lines or that I love the curve of your hips, the erotic beauty of you holding yourself (or two magnificent parts of yourself) in the faded glow of the night’s light--but hey, that would be going into sexual details..."
Stylistically squishy, but surely the words of someone as honestly smitten as the man who gave up a throne for passion.
Showing posts with label Mark Sanford. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Mark Sanford. Show all posts
Thursday, June 25, 2009
Monday, February 23, 2009
Stimulus as GOP Hopefuls' Iraq
Republican gubernatorial presidential wannabes are facing a dilemma over the Obama stimulus similar to the one that led Senate Democratic hopefuls into voting for George W. Bush's invasion of Iraq in 2001.
Just as Hillary Clinton, Joe Biden, John Edwards et al feared retaliation at the polls in 2004 for being soft on terrorism, we now have Bobby Jindal, Sarah Palin and Mark Sanford arguing against government spending in their states during a crashing economy to appease the Republican conservative base for their 2012 primary runs.
On Meet the Press, Gov. Jindal bloviated over his refusal to accept $100 million for unemployment compensation in an estimated $4 billion of aid for Louisiana: “Now is the time, and it’s a great opportunity for Republican governors and other leaders to offer conservative-based solutions to the problems.”
He was followed by Charlie Crist of Florida, whose ambitions reach no higher than the Senate in 2010, saying, “There is a national leader, his name is President Obama...I think we do need to be bipartisan. We need to be, in fact, nonpartisan.”
Arnold Schwarzenegger, whose state is drowning in red ink and is ineligible by birth for running for the White House, is also more philosophical. “Even though it is against your principles or philosophy,” he notes that officeholders should be doing “what the people want you to do rather than getting stuck in your ideology.”
Voting for Iraq left a lot of Democrats scrambling to explain themselves to voters later on. No matter how the stimulus turns out for the economy, some of their Republican counterparts now may have trouble persuading even their base why it was a good idea to open their umbrellas in a financial drought when it was raining federal money.
Just as Hillary Clinton, Joe Biden, John Edwards et al feared retaliation at the polls in 2004 for being soft on terrorism, we now have Bobby Jindal, Sarah Palin and Mark Sanford arguing against government spending in their states during a crashing economy to appease the Republican conservative base for their 2012 primary runs.
On Meet the Press, Gov. Jindal bloviated over his refusal to accept $100 million for unemployment compensation in an estimated $4 billion of aid for Louisiana: “Now is the time, and it’s a great opportunity for Republican governors and other leaders to offer conservative-based solutions to the problems.”
He was followed by Charlie Crist of Florida, whose ambitions reach no higher than the Senate in 2010, saying, “There is a national leader, his name is President Obama...I think we do need to be bipartisan. We need to be, in fact, nonpartisan.”
Arnold Schwarzenegger, whose state is drowning in red ink and is ineligible by birth for running for the White House, is also more philosophical. “Even though it is against your principles or philosophy,” he notes that officeholders should be doing “what the people want you to do rather than getting stuck in your ideology.”
Voting for Iraq left a lot of Democrats scrambling to explain themselves to voters later on. No matter how the stimulus turns out for the economy, some of their Republican counterparts now may have trouble persuading even their base why it was a good idea to open their umbrellas in a financial drought when it was raining federal money.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)