Jul. 1--South Carolina Gov. Mark Sanford was riding fairly high until a week ago when he inexplicably disappeared to embark on what can only be described as a personal odyssey.

According to his staff, Sanford was hiking alone on the Appalachian Trail, something he had been known to do as a means of "clearing his head." His wife seemed to back up the story, too, saying that she hadn't heard from him but he needed the time away to write.

About the only part of this account that was true, as we have all found out since then, is that the governor left the state and, indeed, the country for some "alone time," except that he wasn't exactly alone.

It turns out that the family-values Republican had or has a girlfriend in Buenos Aires, a "dear friend," he said, who became much more than that. During a hastily arranged news conference in which he struggled to maintain his composure, Sanford said that his wife learned about the affair and he has been living elsewhere for the past couple of weeks. The whole solo hiking expedition, he admitted, was an elaborate pretext for slipping off to South America and visiting with the other woman, presumably to figure out what his next move should be.

We aren't much interested in the details of the governor's tryst or the current state of his marriage. What does concern us, though, is the disturbing trend we have seen among elected officials to engage in these liaisons and somehow think that they can pull them off without being exposed, either by their political foes or some intrepid reporter or, more often than not, a combination of the two.

The State newspaper in Columbia, S.C., not coincidentally, began publishing purloined e-mails between Sanford and his "dear friend" the same day that he acknowledged the affair in his press conference. The newspaper hasn't disclosed how it came by the e-mails, which are of the type you might expect between clandestine lovers, but it has been holding on to them for several months, and the governor had to know they were going to be published and his secret would be disclosed to the public.

What makes a smart and ambitious public figure with so much to lose so oblivious to the inherent risk in such bad behavior? Human frailty doesn't explain it, or it shouldn't, although hubris is certainly the common denominator in most of these failings of the flesh. Whatever aura of invincibility there was to convince Mark Sanford that he could live so dangerously and emerge unscathed is gone now, and so, too, is his once bright political career. His failing is all too human, but the fault is his alone.

He can blame it on Buenos Aires, if he must, but not on the Appalachian Trail.

READER COMMENTS

Did this interfer with his work duties? If not GET OVER IT! If we are to hold them to a higher standard then everyone in power better watch out. All the way from the lowest on the totem pole to the highest because now you can be FIRED for activites that happen while not on duty, yes even a polictical figure has "down time", and are perfectly LEGAL in this country. This is private business between him and his wife. Heaven forbid the press would have done this to the Kennedys in the 60's. Can you just imagine a country where nobody will run for fear of being impeached for past transgressions. Shame on you for taking this National and continueing.

-- Posted by kaylene sauer on Wed, Jul 1, 2009, 2:04 pm[report this comment]

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