The Current Crisis
The Palmetto Pathetico
Why is the governor of South Carolina still a national news story?
WASHINGTON -- Why is the governor of South Carolina still a national news story?
This past week Governor Mark Sanford was again in the news, and neither sex nor romance had anything to do with it. I can understand his first great news splash, after he completely vanished from the face of the earth. Then he duped his staff into announcing that he was communing with the birds and the bees along the Appalachian Trail. Then it was discovered that he had actually been emulating the birds and the bees down in Argentina with a secret Argentine inamorata. She is easy on the eyes, and would certainly have been worth the trip, if only he were not married with four children, and if that bizarre deception about woodsy trails had not been attempted.
At the press conference following the debacle he referred to his Argentine beaut as his "soul mate." Obviously the guy was in love. It was the real thing. Had he been from a more romantic place than South Carolina, his ratings would be sky high. Mr. Sanford should be the mayor of Paris or an alderman in Monte Carlo, if they have aldermen in Monte Carlo. Yet, South Carolina is not Monte Carlo, and his fellow Republicans from the Palmetto State want him to retire or he will be impeached when the legislature convenes in January. So now he calls press conferences and invites reporters to follow him as he travels throughout the state to Lions Club meetings and Kiwanis Club meetings, and perchance an occasional meeting at an Odd Fellows' lodge. He does seem a bit oblivious. At these statewide meetings he apologizes and then implores the assembled -- he calls them "friends" -- to help him ram through important legislative changes. He calls them conservative reforms.
Well, I for one find Governor Sanford tedious. Even his syntax is tedious. On the front page -- yes, the FRONT PAGE -- of the Wall Street Journal, Governor Sanford is reported as saying, "I have a newfound level of humility, knowing how hard I work and how hard I push is not the ultimate driver of change. Power resides with people." Now, I have always said that of all the virtues the one that I find absolutely mystifying is the so-called virtue of humility. I mean, what is the point of it? Governor Sanford's declaration strikes me as a concatenation of non sequiturs. What does his hard work have to do with humility? What does the power of the people have to do with humility? From all I can tell after reading this week's news stories, "the people" of South Carolina want him to resign.
Nonetheless the governor is traversing his state working to advance a conservative agenda of reform. It sounds like the reforms are, as the Journal reports, "dull." One would set up a government department to monitor state spending. As things stand today, that function is now performed by a board controlled by legislators. All right, that is like a board of foxes monitoring the hen house. Governor Sanford's reform makes sense. But it is indeed dull. It is nothing like major regulatory reform, major tax cuts, privatizing government functions, perhaps paying for major roadways with user fees.
This brings us to one matter that is, for a certitude, a national story. Governor Sanford is a conservative, and so successful have conservatives been at governing over the last twenty to thirty years that they do not have much of an agenda left. They succeeded throughout the country at fighting crime, lowering taxes, streamlining government -- at least making an effort to streamline government. To a large degree conservatives are the victims of their success. Their policies solved most of the major problems of the last half of the 20th century: the Cold War, the urban crisis, stagflation.
If it were not for the 9/11 attacks, President George W. Bush would not have had much to do during his presidency. He might have addressed the housing bubble, but there was no clamor to do so. In fact, both sides of the aisle seemed to think subprime mortgages were written into the Bill of Rights.
Yet with the Obama Administration in place, it has become increasingly clear that very soon the conservatives will have plenty on their agenda once again. They will have the fiscal mess that Obama is creating. There will be healthcare in need of market reform and malpractice reform. Foreign policy is going to be in dreadful need of adult supervision. Most alarmingly, after the Obama Administration demoralizes our intelligence community and mucks up the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, our defense policies are going to need urgent attention.
So very soon conservatism will have a very full agenda, though I doubt that Governor Sanford will be very much involved.
About the Author
R. Emmett Tyrrell, Jr. is the founder and editor in chief of The American Spectator. He is the author of the forthcoming The Death of Liberalism, published by Thomas Nelson Inc. His previous books include the New York Times bestseller Boy Clinton: the Political Biography; The Impeachment of William Jefferson Clinton; The Liberal Crack-Up; The Conservative Crack-Up; Public Nuisances; The Future that Doesn't Work: Social Democracy's Failure in Britain; Madame Hillary: The Dark Road to the White House; The Clinton Crack-Up; and After the Hangover: The Conservatives' Road to Recovery.
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Melvin| 9.3.09 @ 7:29AM
The one reason that, "El Guapo," from South Carolina is still making news is because, many Americans want to know, was she that good, to make El Guapo see the insides of his eyelids and to throw his family and governorship away.
Many Americans want to hear all the sordid details on El Guapo's paramour in the deep, dark, and steaming jungles of Argentina, where the women are of Amazonian proportions and still run around with skirts make of pampas grass and nothing else.
The great El Guapo with Presidential ambitions tried, but he just couldn't get that primal urge to be lord of the jungle out of his bloodstream and flew down to the pampas grass only to come back, as a pompous ass.
Alan Brooks| 9.3.09 @ 8:21AM
He never drowned a pregnant woman driving in Argentina.
Tim| 9.3.09 @ 8:40AM
"Pathetic" is absolutely right.
Alan Brooks| 9.3.09 @ 9:30AM
At least he never snorted the Argentinian kickapoo coke a week before a Senate hearing.
Alan Brooks| 9.3.09 @ 9:33AM
We know adultery is a sin but we also know it is not a crime such as manslaughter.
You know, people go to prison for manslaughter.
And prison is not a HAPPY place.
Alan Brooks| 9.3.09 @ 9:35AM
... now, there IS a great deal of sex in prison, just not the sort of sex Ted would have been into.
as far as I know.
Eric Damon| 9.3.09 @ 10:10AM
In all honesty, Mark Sanford is back in the news because his scheming Lt. Governor put him there. He and his GOP establishment cronies aren't after Sanford's hide because of his Argentine dalliance, but because he did lots of things that put their noses out of joint...and in the case of Lt. Gov Braugher, he wants Sanford's job. This is the dark underbelly of politics; this is where the SC state GOP is going to try to get some payback on a governor who was not their willing lackey. he provided them some rope, and now they are going to try to hang him with it. This is not some courageous or principled stand by the state GOP, it is just your garden variety political payback.
james wilson| 9.3.09 @ 10:16AM
Bush would have had nothing to do? When we have nothing to do, we ride the socialist train with eighty years of momenum. Or join it.
There was a great deal to do; he didn'tknow what it was. We still don't.
Sean| 9.3.09 @ 10:19AM
How about the SC Republicans focus on getting rid of Grahmasty. He is far more harmful.
Alan Brooks| 9.3.09 @ 10:58AM
Sanford is no worse than 85 percent of governors.
Guvs don't eat milk and cookies all the time-- or watch Ozzie And Harriet.
You tell me, guys.
Besides, I spent many summers in Carolina, and there was so much hanky panky, you couldn't beat it off with a croquet mallet.
Alan Brooks| 9.3.09 @ 10:59AM
why 85 percent?
alrighty, then; 72 percent.
or 69.
L. Ross| 9.3.09 @ 11:43AM
Speaking for myownself, "Yes Virginia, sometimes the sex can be that good."
Alan Brooks: Great stuff.
Missy| 9.3.09 @ 1:44PM
Geez, Ross--you've got it on the brain. Please stop sharing, and leave Palin out of it.
Tim| 9.3.09 @ 1:52PM
Sanford was never the brains; it was always Lamont.
Gene| 9.3.09 @ 2:54PM
The true fiscal conservatives here in SC love Sanford and want him to remain in office.
The rinos and the moderates never liked him anyway.
Unfortunately, too many Christian conservatives who agree with Gov. Sanford on every single political issue have NO mercy or forgiveness in their heart because of his sexual sin. They have forgotten King David .
Missy| 9.3.09 @ 3:06PM
First it was Jenny Sanford's fault, next it was the Lt. Governor's fault and now it's Conservatives' fault.
Baloney.
The Governor is a selfish narcissist who chose to screw up his own life and the lives of those who love him.
It's Sanford's fault.
ramonsanto| 9.3.09 @ 3:07PM
" WHAT WAS HER NAME LADS"
Alan Brooks| 9.3.09 @ 3:18PM
public sexuality has become so empty, coarse and commercialized. 40-45 years after the sexual revolution-- so stale. Sex isn't dirty or wicked, it's just vulgar and fairly boring. that's progress.
but Sanford is picked on?
Alan Brooks| 9.3.09 @ 3:26PM
Coming from a lib-background, the sex doesn't bother me, and that's it exactly sex is so empty there's nothing to be bothered about.
Courtney: "8PM, Ashley; time for the threesome."
Rote. 1969's new anarchist is 2009's old goat.
Sanford is practically a virgin by today's tawdry standards. And again, the sex means nothing to me, if people have feral sex like mink in April I don't stay up nights worrying about it.
But so sex is becoming so tawdry. so... dead.
democratsarefascists| 9.3.09 @ 3:28PM
Let him stay.
With communists in the White House, I'm just not feeling it.
It's not like he perjured himself, after all.
Alan Brooks| 9.3.09 @ 3:42PM
45 years ago public sexuality was daring. Our grade school class saw Those Magnificent Men In Their Flying Machines and a brief view, from a biplane, of two women sunbathing nude on the grass was interesting. Today? just vulgar. the following repost is somewhat off-topic but sums up the empty infantility of Now:
I don't talk to young people much anymore, education has been, and is, too substandard; but when I do chat with the younger set it is a shock:
"My husband watches porn DVDs with my kids and then sleeps with them." And she's the married one.
"My old boyfriend was from the Middle East, he slept with my kids and then went back home."
Did you kick him out?
"No, he just wanted to go back to his real family."
However anecdotal, I talked to only two young mothers during the last year-- the above.
More and more I like to stay home and read the Bible or listen to Focus On The Family.
It's a rebellious streak.
I ought to apologize for having said some things about Michael Jackson that were hyperbole-- only liberals today can be hyperbolic. They can vent all they want, they are human, sensitive, searching.
But searching for what? girls?
Boys?
Michael Jackson wasn't (nor was Ted Kennedy) vicious. Jacko was a lamb. But you touch a black child the wrong way and his kin might break your fingers. Blacks are strong people. And, might it be added in passing there is no real evidence Jacko ever molested a child. But his huggy-kissy pajama parties are legendary.
Why do I write all this? liberal guilt. I grew up being told any-- and I mean any-- sex was fair game, though But, how to put it, conservatives know or sense that if everyone does something, then no one can do something.
-------------------------------
Bill Kristol offered the only solution to conservatives, assuming many conservatives will exist in the future: withdraw, game over. Only big government can stop pedophiles and molesters, and government is too busy with imaginary universal health care paid for by nonexistent funds.
Dave Lincoln| 9.3.09 @ 9:26PM
Hang on, Governer Sanford. Don't let the pundits get you down. Michelle Malkin is especially bad about this. She needs to lay the hell off. Take the corncob out of your ass, Michelle Malkin, before you point out the speck in your brother's (?? I think I got this right, but I'm paraphrasing)
We need great conservatives like you in office, and some of us realize that there's a lot of temptation - stuff happens. I actually don't think that women in Argentina are especially hot, BTW, and I could have found you a nice Brazilian chick right here in the South who would have been more discreet. True, she lives in a trailer and she's lost a coupla teeth, doesn't like sweet tea (crazy broad!) and is an illegal alien, but it would have saved you a lot of travel time.
Don't let the stupid party act out their nickname here Governor Sanford. While the evil party lets Senators hand-pick their successors even after the first is dead, the stupid party has their pundits and politicians all over the country denounce one of the most principled conservatives in executive position.
As we say down South, the stupid party is as the stupid party does, and finish your grits before they get cold.
Dave Lincoln| 9.3.09 @ 9:29PM
Oh, Alan Brooks, you are really hung up on some great time you had down South in your past. You should come down and live here. Just don't talk funny, and don't expect to much. From all the propositions and goings on you state that you had in your past, you may have been a big stud then. Who knows now, right? Take it slow.
Go Sanford!
Dave Lincoln| 9.3.09 @ 9:30PM
WAS: "... to much."
S/B : "... too much"
(I hate when people do that)
A.B. NOrmal| 9.3.09 @ 9:37PM
concatenation of non sequiturs.
I had to look up concatenation.
Fortunately i just bought the 'WEBSTERS NEW TWENTIETH CENTURY DICTIONARY UNABRIDGED SECOND EDITION-DELUXE COLOR' from the library book sale today.
wow $4 for a 2200 page lexicon. This baby must have cost hundreds when there were real books.
So, what was the subject? I get detracted by the smoke.
adios,
ab
lancaster, prop9ifornia
push 1 for english in the USA
push nothing for spanish in the USA
A.B. NOrmal| 9.3.09 @ 9:39PM
that was Prop8ifornia.
got blow?
Alan Brooks| 9.3.09 @ 9:40PM
I was facetious the other day about too much sex in the Southland; from '65- '72 we spent summers in NC.
It was wil; but then '65-'72 were wild years.
Alan Brooks| 9.3.09 @ 9:42PM
wild.
Alan Brooks| 9.3.09 @ 9:46PM
Dave Lincoln,
I was never a stud. The teenagers in NC were.
Sanford is, too. If he would go all the way to Argentina for fun, then he must be one.
Alan Brooks| 9.3.09 @ 9:49PM
...and telling me to stop talking funny is like telling Daphne Kenward to cease taking haldol.
To what purpose?
A.B. NOrmal| 9.3.09 @ 10:00PM
you got it right Mr. Dave Lincoln: spell check doesn't work on there and their either.
colloquialisms aside,
vernacular be-damned:
and it is cou - pon not cue - pon.
and you envy others possessions and are jealous of your possessions. not interchangeable.
and it is grand-aunt NOT great- aunt.
Car - ib - be - an NOT Car - i - bbean.
adios,
ab
lancaster, taxifornia
push 1 for COMPREHENSIVE IMMIGRATION REFORM BILL (coming to a country near you)
got pedantocracy?
p.s. Mark should resign.
Dave Lincoln| 9.3.09 @ 10:03PM
to the purpose of having the fun you had in your old days down in N. Carolina, Alan. Nobody wants to hang with a Yankee....
.... unless you want to move down to S. Florida. A Yankee accent would fit in fine there, as that territory is no longer part of the South. But, don't have visions of hot, sexy, Argetinian-lookin' babes - you may have good luck with one of the ladies over at the S+S cafeteria during the early-bird special though. You and she can reminisce about the old times as you gum down your creamed corn.
Haha... just messin with you Alan... kinda bored right now.
Angel| 9.3.09 @ 10:28PM
NOrmal (not so much); it's Pirates of the Car-i-bbean not Pirates of the Car-ib-be-an. Just ask Johnny Depp or any teenaged Disneyland worker.
Get with the program, dude.
Missy| 9.3.09 @ 10:32PM
I don't think Sanford should resign; I just wish he'd stop whining.
Liberal men whine a lot, that's why I can't stand them.
whiny men, that's why I disrespect liberal beta men.
Dave Lincoln| 9.3.09 @ 10:41PM
Missy, I don't know much about the whining. He's a good governer.
Whining's bad.... mmmkay? (sorry, if you don't know South Park, that may not make sense).
Missy| 9.3.09 @ 11:21PM
You don't think Sanford's first post-affair 45 minute presser was a whinefest? Really?
Dave, I've got no dog in this fight--I'm sorry this whole mess happened: Sanford should stay Governor, just manup a little more, that's all.
This didn't have to happen: Sanford's wife could be seriously beautiful if she wore some makeup and sexed herself up a little, you know? Not in a scuzzy way; but a womanly, sensuous way. Bet she'd own him if she just put a little 'sultry' in her style. You men aren't that tough, if you know what I mean.
She's given him four beautiful sons and it's sad to see the love that created those boys die. I feel so bad for his kids; I'm sure it's been very hard on them. That's all I meant.
Dave Lincoln| 9.3.09 @ 11:33PM
No, Missy, you Miss-understand ;-)
I don't watch TV. Therefore, I missed out on said "whinefest". I just meant what I said: "I don't KNOW about the whining".
I agree with you on the wife. If she left him I wouldn't blame her. (That would sure be better than a Clinton scenario, where, most likely some under-the-bedsheet deal was made, in which Hillary wouldn't leave or raise too much hell if Bill would pay her back later - I imagine that deal has probably been broken by now. Anyway, SC is not big-time enough for that kind of thing, luckily.)
Anyway, I hope the Governor can hang on. At this point, it's all political. It's not like the none of the opponents have ever done anything like this. They just don't want to let this crisis go to waste, as they say. However, it doesn't help when the conservative side piles on. Let the guy defend himself. Tyrell. I know you would feel you are a hypocrite if you said nothing due to the Spectator/Prowler vendetta against Clinton back in the day. Don't sweat it - you had more on Clinton than the silly affairs.
Missy| 9.3.09 @ 11:45PM
She still loves him; it's obvious. A lot of women have trouble finding their inner femme fatale and it wrecks marriages. It's not all her, I know--but some of it is.
Hell, if Latinas float his boat, be a Latina!
jeffson| 9.4.09 @ 3:32AM
I was facetious the other day about too much sex in the Southland; from '65- '72 we spent summers in NC.
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allen| 9.4.09 @ 4:26AM
Liberal men whine a lot, that's why I can't stand them.
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Richard Baker| 9.7.09 @ 12:47AM
His "saga" goes on because Oprah must be in re-runs.
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Geraldo| 9.8.09 @ 2:19AM
I didnt think southern gentlemen wrote lovesick poetry, but this man-animal proves I was wrong. This guy has the soul of a wounded seal who really wants to hump hot latina women. I approve of his shenanigans.
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