There’s Justice for the Mark Sanford’s and Then There’s Justice for the Rest of Us
“The vices of the rich and great are mistaken for error; and those of the poor and lowly, for crimes.”
– Lady Marguerite Blessington
The Tattlesnake isn’t quite as forgiving as was Newsweek’s Jonathan Alter on Keith Olbermann’s Countdown June 26. Alter said he felt sorry for Gov. Mark Sanford (R-SC) and concluded he was a ‘nice guy.’ Sanford’s having an extramarital affair is really none of our business, and even his lying about it, to an extent, is understandable, but there are some other dimensions to the lurid Sanford saga that display a ‘public servant’ who is considerably less than what most would consider a ‘nice guy,’ aside from his towering hypocrisy.
First there was his attempt to deny $700 million in federal financial aid to South Carolina’s schoolchildren and unemployed, merely to score political points with the GOP base with an eye to a 2012 presidential nomination. That doesn’t sound very ‘nice’ to me.
Then there’s the fact that, after all of the soap-opera revelations regarding his affair with a married Argentinean woman, and outrageous lies concerning his whereabouts as he disappeared for seven days, followed by tearful public apologies, he still refuses to resign.
Moreover, he has confessed to violating South Carolina state law prohibiting misuse of public funds and adultery – yet Sanford has not been arrested for either.
Sanford the Incredible Weenie
Further Reading:
Nikolas Kozloff: C Street Family — Sex Scandals, Moral Hypocrisy, and Far Right Agenda in Central America
Buzzflash.com, July 10, 2009
Rachel Maddow: GOP Sex Scandal Exposes Secretive Conservative Religious Group — ‘The Family’
Alternet, July 14, 2009