I was reading about the tribulations of South Carolina governor Mark Sanford while incidentally listening to the song "Lost and Running" by Powderfinger, and it occurred to me the song choice was rather apt.
I wonder what it is that people who excoriate those that become involved in extramarital affairs have... that gives them such lack of imagination.
It can't have been just the sex, otherwise he would have played saucy games with a hooker in some dive motel like any other self-respecting God-spouting Republican hypocrite, or gone upmarket like Spitzer, foolishly convinced he can return to home and hearth - that it never happened if he never mentions it.
Putting aside his politics for a minute, Sanford seems to have hit that dread dilemma of too many positives:
What do you do - when you've got it all (and he was in a good place) - but it isn't enough? There's still something else.
He could have bided his time, ended it with his wife, rolled up his career and then quietly slipped away with his mistress... but he didn't do that. Instead he dropped off the scope for 5 days, which turned every spotlight for miles in his direction when he reappeared, broken with torment.
He'd not so much lost his "moral legitimacy", with which he had branded Bill Clinton a rascal, as had it fall back on him like an anvil rolling downhill.
But the uber-conservative self-righteous twerp blogger brigade will have to excuse some of us if we don't stone the man.
I don't even want to stone him for the perceived hypocrisy. I'll just say "sort your life out, sport", and reflect of the complexities of human nature.
What strange creatures we can be..
I wonder what it is that people who excoriate those that become involved in extramarital affairs have... that gives them such lack of imagination.
It can't have been just the sex, otherwise he would have played saucy games with a hooker in some dive motel like any other self-respecting God-spouting Republican hypocrite, or gone upmarket like Spitzer, foolishly convinced he can return to home and hearth - that it never happened if he never mentions it.
Putting aside his politics for a minute, Sanford seems to have hit that dread dilemma of too many positives:
What do you do - when you've got it all (and he was in a good place) - but it isn't enough? There's still something else.
He could have bided his time, ended it with his wife, rolled up his career and then quietly slipped away with his mistress... but he didn't do that. Instead he dropped off the scope for 5 days, which turned every spotlight for miles in his direction when he reappeared, broken with torment.
He'd not so much lost his "moral legitimacy", with which he had branded Bill Clinton a rascal, as had it fall back on him like an anvil rolling downhill.
But the uber-conservative self-righteous twerp blogger brigade will have to excuse some of us if we don't stone the man.
I don't even want to stone him for the perceived hypocrisy. I'll just say "sort your life out, sport", and reflect of the complexities of human nature.
What strange creatures we can be..
A few commentators in the US left blogosphere made somewhat the same observation. (I'm too lazy to re-find them for links.) There's something all too human, and almost epic, about dropping out of sight in a way guaranteed to get so much attention.
ReplyDeleteThanks for your comment Rick. I've dropped into your blog in the past under another username and always found it interesting. I've added it to my blogroll.
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