I Was OK With It Until I Saw the Hypocrisy

The recent scandal involving South Carolina's Governor Sanford caught my attention. At first, I thought "His private life should be private. If he's a solid politician, then that's all that matters." Frankly, I have often respected his resolve and his willingness to hold unpopular positions. Sleeping on a cot in his office was great. Refusing the federal stimulus money was kinda crazy, but I respected it.

Then, I read these quotes:

The bottom line, though, is I am sure there will be a lot of legalistic explanations pointing out that [he] lied under oath. His situation was not under oath. The bottom line, though, is he still lied. He lied under a different oath, and that is the oath to his wife. So it’s got to be taken very, very seriously.

I think it would be much better for the country and for him personally (to resign). I come from the business side. If you had a chairman or president in the business world facing these allegations, he’d be gone.

The issue of lying is probably the biggest harm, if you will, to the system of Democratic government, representatives government, because it undermines trust. And if you undermine trust in our system, you undermine everything.

We ought to ask questions…rather than circle the wagons for one of our tribe.

All of these are quotes from Sanford himself. The first three are about Bill Clinton and the last is about how the GOP should react to marital infidelity scandals within their own party (I think Bob Livingston was the topic of the day for that one).

I am not a fan of people being sanctimonious, but when people who act holier than thou turn out to be equally susceptible to weakness, it strengthens my cynicism.

Anyway, I know this is old, old news, but I drafted this when it was still current, then left it for a long time.