thump and whip

Weren’t we already done with this guy? Wasn’t everybody saying how lucky he was that MJ kicked off when he did, eclipsing Sanford’s ugly public whipping? [see here and here]

You’d think he’d have been practically weeping while thanking his super-lucky stars for a reprieve from the unblinking spotlight. Instead, he’s apparently been jealous of the shifting attention. A fresh round of head-scratching and outrage began today as a number of his new statements hit the media, painting him as someone who is deeply flawed and needlessly forthcoming about his private life, to the point of surely hurting and embarrassing his family even more than they are already.

Why in the world would somebody do this? Simple: it’s because he’s an unhappy Republican. He’s finally coming clean about how hard it is to live within the impossible confines of perfect patriotism, patriarchy and Love for Jesus, and now he just can’t dam the catharsis. These lonely cries for attention make for some very sad, brutal stuff.

AP Newsbreak: SC gov ‘crossed lines’ with women

COLUMBIA, S.C. — South Carolina Gov. Mark Sanford says he “crossed lines” with a handful of women other than his mistress — but never had sex with them.

The governor says he “never crossed the ultimate line” with anyone but Maria Belen Chapur, the Argentine at the center of a scandal that has derailed Sanford’s once-promising political career…

He says that during the other encounters he “let his guard down” with some physical contact but “didn’t cross the sex line.” He wouldn’t go into detail.

Sanford said the casual encounters happened outside the U.S. while he was married but before he met Chapur.

Wow. You can bet that his wife doesn’t want to hear all the pointed details, so why the hell is he going on about it publicly? It’s pretty obvious, actually–petty selfishness. And he’s doing all this after the breaking Jackson story? Terrific.

Sanford Calls Mistress His ‘Soul Mate’

COLUMBIA, S.C. (CBS) ―South Carolina Gov. Mark Sanford called his Argentine mistress his “soul mate” Tuesday, but said that he would try to fall back in love with his wife…

In a lengthy and emotional interview with The Associated Press in his Statehouse office Tuesday, the governor described five meetings with Maria Belen Chapur over the past year, including two romantic, multi-night stays with her in New York before they met there again intending to break up.

What the hell? That’s fucked. But there’s even more:

The once-promising presidential prospect said he is committed to reconciling with his wife, but professed to The Associated Press his continued love for the Argentine woman at the center of the firestorm that gutted his political future.

In emotional interviews with the AP over two days, he said he would die “knowing that I had met my soul mate.”…

Sanford insisted his relationship with Maria Belen Chapur, whom he met at an open air dance spot in Uruguay eight years ago, was more than just sex.

“This was a whole lot more than a simple affair, this was a love story,” Sanford said. “A forbidden one, a tragic one, but a love story at the end of the day.”

What a self-centered little douchebag. Oh, you’re really getting the public to sympathize with you, Sanford, you poor unfortunate romantic. I’m sure no one will care about the damage you’ve done to your family, or how hurtful all today’s comments will be to your wife and kids, we’re really just worried about your broken heart and shattered ambitions.

I can’t imagine how the kids are going to have to deal with all these additional revelations, including the fact that Mom was a mistake: the unexciting ‘not soul-mate’, that should sit pretty well with them.

This is why it’s a bad idea to be a Republican. At some point, the idiotic confines of public perfection and the high-wire morality march become too much to bear any more, and everything’s gonna break, and then you’re gonna act like an even bigger douchebag than you already are.

And will the right-wing finally wake up to the impossible demands they make of their politicians for the convenience of using ‘values’ to bludgeon the left? Or how these demands destroy more potential leaders than they create? Hell no.

Instead, they’ll just try to beat us with it like they do everything else. This is an actual ‘Red State’ post written in the aftermath of the Sanford fiasco, I’m not making this up:

To majority media and other Democrats : we police our own, and you don’t get to judge

By all means report the facts. I’m sure you’ll be happy to cover every salacious detail. Have at it. Be sure to cover the pain and suffering of Governor Sanford’s family. While you are at it, cover the depth to which all South Carolina and nation-wide Republicans and conservatives rightly feel betrayed.

Beyond that, just shut up. Shut your lying, hypocritical, power-above-patriotism, hyper-partisan, two-faced, shamelessly double-standard bearing pie hole.

You don’t get to judge.

The Library of Congress could hardly contain chapter and verse of the multitudes of ways the press and the other Democrats have gotten away with judging Republicans by wholly different standards than that applied to Democrats. But that double standard is both obvious and as wide as the Grand Canyon. You show no honor, no equity, no fairness, and no scruples yourselves. You, to put it mildly, do not police your own.

So, spare us your mock outrage, your tut-tutting, your finger-wagging, your eyebrows furrowed in anger. If you are well and truly outraged by Mark Sanford’s adultery, but could not trouble yourself to muster even a little mild disapproval against the cretin who wiped his feet with the honor of the office of President of the United States, then you are a hypocrite yourself of the lowest stripe. You are unworthy to judge.

So just shut up.