Sanford

I've been trying very hard to avoid knowing anything about Mark Sanford and his affair. I find this public gasping about adulterous politicians to be very distasteful. Haven't we had enough with the whole Clinton idiocy? But the story is everywhere. And some things that are being written are impossible to not want to respond.

Michelle Malkin wrote an article called "Bastard" that is just too weird to pass by. Here is the opening sentence of Malkin's piece: "It’s the only fitting word for a man who abandons his wife and four sons on Father’s Day weekend to indulge his “overdrive” on an Argentinian fling." It sounds like cheating on any other day would be somehow better. Obviously, if he stayed home on Father's Day, we could start screaming: "What a hypocrite! Spending the day wiith his family, like nothing is going on. How could he look his children in the eye. And all this, on Father's Day!"

Another reason why Malkin feels disgusted with Sanford: "He had a hell of a lot more passion and pathos for his mistress than his own wife." Well, that wasn't very unexpected, since she is his mistress. A newsflash: being somebody's wife or husband doesn't necessarily guarantee that this person will feel passionate towards you forever. Sad, I know. But hardly very unexpected.

The next outraged statement: "He referred wistfully to the “great friendship” and “that sparking thing” he had with the mistress for eight years — during which his wife was raising his four children." Now, I don't know the Sanfords' entire family history, but this surely sounds like the wife was raising the kids he had with another woman. Or are these her children, too? If so, then I fail to see the point of this statement. Would she have not raised them if she had known about the affair?

The concluding sentence of the piece is, of course, the best: "If you can't honor your marriage vows, how can you expect voters to trust you to honor your damned oath of office?" I mean, seriously? We are going to decide how good one's performance is as a politician based on his loyalty to his wife? I haven't heard about any cheating on George W.'s part. And he was still a pretty lousy president.

Believe me, I have no love for the Republicans (to put it mildly). But this righteous indignation is way too silly. Let's judge public officials on how they perform their public duties and not on how, when, or why they perform in their own or anybody else's bedroom.