There are two aspects of Sanford’s debacle: one is the train wreck aspect and the second is the serious policy aspects.
As a train wreck, it is a high water mark for us partisan Democrats. We are swimming in a warm, clear ocean of schadenfreude. To stretch the image to the breaking point, this is no ordinary train wreck. Sanford was at the throttle of a 200 car freighter carrying toxic chemicals, flammable liquid tankers, livestock and nuclear waste products barreling down a bend at 120 miles an hour. The resultant accident has not only hurled burning box cars higgledy-piggledy but has resulted in the release of wondering burning irradiated livestock over the landscape.
That was the “fun” part; watching a hubristic jerk get his comeuppance. The second part was much more serious. The man was incommunicado for almost a week and was planning to be gone for almost two. That was the major, perhaps the only, sin. The Government of South Carolina was without executive authority for four days. The word “irresponsible” does not even begin to define the Governor’s behavior. What he did was not a high crime but it was a precise and epic definition of the word “misdemeanor.” Not perhaps in a legal way but in any other way you would wish to break down this particular compound word “mis-”(bad) + demeanor(behavioral attributes), the way a person behaves toward other people {http://wordnetweb.princeton.edu/perl/webwn?s=demeanor}
I’ll let Ms. Taylor Marsh provide any insights she may have of the personal dynamics of this particular event. Human passions are a very hard thing to begin to understand. Why the governor strayed and with whom is in the the long run of no lasting import. It is what the Filipinos call “chismis” (rhymes with Christmas) idle gossip. What truly matters is that the people of South Carolina are ill served by having this nihilist, hypocritical, narcissistic jerk as a governor.
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