Posted by
Steve on Thursday, June 25, 2009 1:05:43 PM
Since Governor Sanford reappeared, the talk shows have had almost non-stop talk about the situation. The facts are rather simple. The Governor was attracted to a woman, not his wife. This went on for a while in relative privacy. Then, he decided to visit her in Argentina. When he made the visit, he did not confide in anyone on where he was going. That is why the false story about the hiking trip was given out. After learning that he was discovered, Governor Sanford admitted to the affair and resigned from the leadership post with the Republican Governor’s Association.
The story is a familiar one. A man in a powerful position finds himself attracted to women. Even though he is married, he decides that nobody will find out about an affair with “this woman”. So, the powerful man breaks his marriage vows and has the affair with the exciting woman that he has found. Of course, he is found out. Some, at this point, try to lie their way out like Bill Clinton. Others, like Mark Sanford, own up to the error and admit the affair. The one thing that almost all of them do not do is give up the power that they currently hold. It is extremely rare for a person in power to give that up over an affair with a woman. They may give up leadership positions, but not the position of power that they currently hold. If the person is a Democrat, things are forgotten and go back to normal. If the person is a Republican, he is hounded all the way through the election to guarantee that he loses and a Democrat can pick up the seat. This situation is following in the typical pattern. It is still early, so we do not know how it will finally play out.
Mark Sanford was talked about as Presidential material. That talk is now over. This affair will ruin his career potential. He has reached the maximum level that he will ever reach in politics. He could have gone much higher. He was saying and doing all the right things to enable him to be nominated for President or Vice-President.
Mike Gallagher asked a question on his radio program this morning that was intriguing. The question is whether we can have living heroes. Mike Gallagher had put Mark Sanford in the hero category because of his track record on the issues. Now that Mark Sanford has shown that he has feet of sand, he has proven that he is not a hero. Many of us do the same thing with other politicians or public figures. The problem is that all of these “heroes” are human. Humans, by definition, make mistakes. If we accept the fact that humans make mistakes, then we also should accept that our “heroes” will make mistakes. We just have to hope that the mistakes we are talking about are a little smaller than this one by Mark Sanford. For example: I put John Wayne in the hero category. I know that he smoked, but he still qualifies as a hero because of a great many other qualities. The same would work for almost all people that would qualify as heroes. The only unblemished heroes would be fictional or Jesus Christ. All others are fallible human beings.
The Democrats will make hay out of this admission by Mark Sanford and the other recent one by John Ensign. They will claim that Republicans are hypocrites. We preach about family values, then go off and have affairs. These affairs actually prove the message, not disprove the message. The fact that they are unusual proves that Republicans are generally supportive of family values proves the point. That a few fall off the wagon is not a rejection of family values, it is just an acknowledgement that humans are not perfect. On the other hand, nobody bats an eyelash when a Democrat is unfaithful. That is because Democrats do not uphold family values and so are not expected to live them. I would rather live family values and have some fall off the wagon than not live family values at all. Of course, that is the Christian in me talking.