Naturally. What did you expect?
“I think it would be much better for the country and for him personally (to resign). I come from the business side. If you had a chairman or president in the business world facing these allegations, he’d be gone.” [Sanford on Clinton, The Post and Courier, 9/12/98]
“The issue of lying is probably the biggest harm, if you will, to the system of Democratic government, representatives government, because it undermines trust. And if you undermine trust in our system, you undermine everything.” [Sanford on Clinton, CNN, 2/16/99]
Also, here's a question--if South Carolina received almost $8 billion from the federal stimulus package, which Sanford initially refused to accept but only did so after first the legislature and then the South Carolina Supreme Court forced him to apply, and used at least part of it to pay off the state's budget deficit from which the Governor's salary is paid...does that mean that at least a little bit of stimulus money went to fund his little jaunt to Argentina?
Dammit, that's NOT what the stimulus was supposed to stimulate!
7 comments:
I believe the point about the business side isn't that corporate execs can't have affairs -- it's that they can't have affairs with their employees. As far as I know, Sanford's paramour wasn't a state employee; Clinton's was.
Nor did he lie under oath, in order to obstruct justice in a lawsuit to which he was party.
And let's not forget the fun fact that Sanford voted against providing Medicaid coverage to women with breast and cervical cancer...
Ari, I'm pretty sure that corporate execs, in addition to having affairs with employees, also can't use the company resources to go to Argentina to do something completely unrelated to the business. And they can't have their staff lie to the other corporate executives about their whereabouts. Do you really not see any distinction, or is what Clinton did automatically worse than what any Republican can do?
And Ben, don't you know that in wingnut-land, breast and cervical cancer are just God's way of punishing sex?
Stimulus, stimulate. That was actually pretty funny.
He certainly should resign.
Where do I start? Dereliction of duty: the governor left his state unprotected and disappeared for days knowing that he has the sole authority to deploy the national guard in case of emergency. He did not care that no body in position of power knew were he was. He lied to his wife and staff about his location and activities and probably used state resources to carry on his tryst. As for the dude who mentioned Clinton, if having an affair with an employee was cause for resignation how come senator Ensign is still in Congress? And since some people have Chronic Clinton Derangement Syndrome (CCDS),why doesn't Stanford follow the advise he gave to Clinton at the time and just resign to spare his family and the state? People who live in glass houses should not throw stones. This schandenfreude time. :)
Glen, the "stimulus" part is what takes this from merely funny into an epic comedy handed to us on a silver platter.
Also, I read your post on the subject and I agree in part--someone's personal life should not discredit their ideologies. But what makes it particularly ironic and grating is when someone like Sanford (or John Edwards for that matter, he really fits into this analogy) holds themselves out as "holier than thou" on family issues.
That's one way to stop all this focus on affairs and scandals. Everyone in politics just needs to drop the whole "holier than thou" attitude.
That's true.
But it all falls back into the "electoral politics in a republic" thing. It's like saying "everyone needs to just stop demagoguing." It's just part of politics.
Of course, with all of these lamentations about the drawbacks of representative democracy, it's still better than anything else.
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