Stranger than fiction

[trinityvixen]

I watched the press conference with Governor Sanford yesterday. It was one of the worst attempts to defuse a situation as ever I saw. I understand that he's supposed to be "unconventional," and many of his constituents probably prize shooting from the hip over practiced, careful speechifying, but it was just embarrassing to watch.

It takes this article four paragraphs to get to the Gov's official declaration, which, believe me, is three times faster than Sanford managed. When one is caught in obvious shenanigans, the best thing to do is come forward and say, upfront, what's been going on. Instead, he meandered through all the plausible reasons why he might have disappeared for a week, apologized to friends, family, and voters, mentioned a reporter he'd had a run-in with at the Atlanta airport, and then copped to being out of the country on a booty call. He then went into embarrassing detail about how he'd met this person innocently at first, and how that had changed, and so on and so forth. Dude, you're here to tell people why you up and vanished without leaving your contact information, not trace your every thought process since your affair started. Great, you cheated on your wife; we do not need the play-by-play. (Unless it's going to lead to awkward questions like it did in Senator Ensign's case where he might have paid his mistress more, with GOP funds, while he was schtupping her and fired her when the affair was over.)

Of course, the real "news" here is that Sanford was a 2012 presidential hopeful and that looks like it won't be happening any more. I hope that such dashing of his chances happen for the right reason--for the fact that the executive leader of an entire state went AWOL and didn't think to make any provisions (like talking to the Lt. Gov!!!) to deal with state business while he was away. I don't give a shit who you boned unless your boning breaks the law (which, possibly, Ensign's firing of his mistress could have done--his paying her more while she had sex with him doesn't look great either). But you cannot just abandon your post as president. You want ass? Call up Hugh Hefner, go to Camp David, shag your weekend away, but for the love of the great noodly one, STAY IN TOUCH.

Comments

[ivy03.livejournal.com]

...I just don't understand the thought process behind going AWOL. Forget being governor of a state--even if you were an average joe having an affair, wouldn't you think disappearing for a week without telling anyone might make your wife suspicious?

As Jon Stewart said, yet another politician with a conservative head and a liberal dick.

[moonlightalice.livejournal.com]

She knew about the affair--they've been separated for weeks and in counseling for months.

[trinityvixen.livejournal.com]

This screams "wants to be caught," doesn't it? I mean, seriously, if he had left any excuse with people, including some of the many bogus ones forwarded by the people who still didn't know as of the story hitting the press where he was, he could have jaunted off anywhere and not had it matter. All he had to do was lie and say he was planning to go hiking or something, and none of this would have mattered.