As in all great affairs, Mark Sanford fell in love simultaneously with
a woman and himself — with the dashing new version of himself he saw
in her molten eyes.

In a weepy, gothic unraveling, the South Carolina governor gave a
press conference illustrating how smitten he was, not only with his
Argentine amante, but with his own tenderness, his own pathos and his
own feminine side.

He got into trouble as a man and tried to get out as a woman.

He wanted to get his girlfriend a DVD of the movie “The Holiday,”
presumably the Cameron Diaz-Kate Winslet chick flick about two women,
one from L.A. and one from England, who trade homes and lives. He was
fantasizing about catapulting himself into an exotic life where
stimulus had nothing to do with budgets.

With Maria, he was no longer the penny-pinching millionaire Mark, who
used to sleep on a futon in his Congressional office and once treated
two congressmen to movie refreshments by bringing back a Coke and
three straws.

No, he was someone altogether more fascinating: Marco, international
man of mystery and suave god of sex and tango.

Mark was the self-righteous, Bible-thumping prig who pressed for Bill
Clinton’s impeachment; Marco was the un-self-conscious Lothario,
canoodling with Maria in Buenos Aires, throwing caution to the e-wind
about their “soul-mate feel,” her tan lines, her curves, “the erotic
beauty of you holding yourself (or two magnificent parts of yourself)
in the faded glow of night’s light.”

Mark is a conservative railing against sinners; Marco sins liberally.
Mark opposes gay marriage as a threat to traditional marriage. Marco
thinks nothing of risking his own traditional marriage, and celebrates
transgressive relationships. He frets to Maria in e-mail that he
sounds “like the Thornbirds — wherein I was always upset with Richard
Chamberlain for not dropping his ambitions and running into Maggie’s
arms.”

Marco, the libertine, wonders how they will ever “put the Genie back
in the bottle.” And in the sort of Freudian slip that any solipsistic
pol like Mark would adore, Maria protests in Spanglish: “I don’t want
to put the genius back in the bottle.”

Mark is so frugal for the taxpayers that he made his staffers use both
sides of Post-it notes and index cards, and once brought two
(defecating) pigs named “Pork” and “Barrel” into the statehouse to
express his disgust with lawmakers’ pet spending projects.

Marco is a sly scamp who found a sneaky way to make South Carolina
taxpayers pay for a south-of-the-border romp with his mistress.

Mark is so selfish he tried to enhance his presidential chances by
resisting South Carolina’s share of President Obama’s $787 billion
stimulus package, callously giving the back of his hand to the
suffering state’s most vulnerable — the jobless and poor and black
students.

Marco is generous, promising to send a memento of affection that Maria
wants to keep by her bed.

Mark hates lying. As he said of Bill’s dalliance with Monica, “If you
undermine trust in our system, you undermine everything.”

Marco lies with brio, misleading his family, his lieutenant governor,
his staff and his state about his whereabouts, even packing camping
equipment to throw off the scent from South America. He told whoppers
to his wife, a former investment banker who managed his campaigns and
raises his four sons (solo on Father’s Day). She put out a statement
quoting Psalm 127 to snidely remind her besotted husband “that sons
are a gift from the Lord.”

Jenny Sanford told The Associated Press on Friday that Mark had told
her he needed time to be alone and write, so she was stunned to learn
he was in Argentina on a “Roman Holiday.” Before he left to “write,”
she warned him not to skip off to the other woman.

Mark, who disdains rascals, agreed that he wouldn’t. Marco, who is a
rascal, skipped off.

Mark went back to work on Friday, giving his cabinet a lecture on
personal responsibility and comparing himself to King David, who “fell
mightily ... in very, very significant ways but then picked up the
pieces and built from there.”

Actually, the one thing David didn’t do after his adulterous fall was
build, because he was forbidden by God to construct his dream temple
in Jerusalem.

Sanford should give his piety a rest. He told his cabinet that the
Psalms taught him humility. (There’s a chance that a younger Argentine
boyfriend of Maria’s also taught him humility, by jealously hacking
into her e-mail account and leaking the governor’s missives.)

Sanford can be truly humble only if he stops dictating to others, who
also have desires and weaknesses, how to behave in their private
lives.

The Republican Party will never revive itself until its sanctimonious
pantheon — Sanford, Gingrich, Limbaugh, Palin, Ensign, Vitter and
hypocrites yet to be exposed — stop being two-faced.


From Maureen Dowd

jps wrote:

As in all great affairs, Mark Sanford fell in love simultaneously with
a woman and himself — with the dashing new version of himself he saw
in her molten eyes.

In a weepy, gothic unraveling, the South Carolina governor gave a
press conference illustrating how smitten he was, not only with his
Argentine amante, but with his own tenderness, his own pathos and his
own feminine side.

He got into trouble as a man and tried to get out as a woman.

He wanted to get his girlfriend a DVD of the movie “The Holiday,”
presumably the Cameron Diaz-Kate Winslet chick flick about two women,
one from L.A. and one from England, who trade homes and lives. He was
fantasizing about catapulting himself into an exotic life where
stimulus had nothing to do with budgets.

With Maria, he was no longer the penny-pinching millionaire Mark, who
used to sleep on a futon in his Congressional office and once treated
two congressmen to movie refreshments by bringing back a Coke and
three straws.

No, he was someone altogether more fascinating: Marco, international
man of mystery and suave god of sex and tango.

Mark was the self-righteous, Bible-thumping prig who pressed for Bill
Clinton’s impeachment; Marco was the un-self-conscious Lothario,
canoodling with Maria in Buenos Aires, throwing caution to the e-wind
about their “soul-mate feel,” her tan lines, her curves, “the erotic
beauty of you holding yourself (or two magnificent parts of yourself)
in the faded glow of night’s light.”

Mark is a conservative railing against sinners; Marco sins liberally.
Mark opposes gay marriage as a threat to traditional marriage. Marco
thinks nothing of risking his own traditional marriage, and celebrates
transgressive relationships. He frets to Maria in e-mail that he
sounds “like the Thornbirds — wherein I was always upset with Richard
Chamberlain for not dropping his ambitions and running into Maggie’s
arms.”

Marco, the libertine, wonders how they will ever “put the Genie back
in the bottle.” And in the sort of Freudian slip that any solipsistic
pol like Mark would adore, Maria protests in Spanglish: “I don’t want
to put the genius back in the bottle.”

Mark is so frugal for the taxpayers that he made his staffers use both
sides of Post-it notes and index cards, and once brought two
(defecating) pigs named “Pork” and “Barrel” into the statehouse to
express his disgust with lawmakers’ pet spending projects.

Marco is a sly scamp who found a sneaky way to make South Carolina
taxpayers pay for a south-of-the-border romp with his mistress.

Mark is so selfish he tried to enhance his presidential chances by
resisting South Carolina’s share of President Obama’s $787 billion
stimulus package, callously giving the back of his hand to the
suffering state’s most vulnerable — the jobless and poor and black
students.

Marco is generous, promising to send a memento of affection that Maria
wants to keep by her bed.

Mark hates lying. As he said of Bill’s dalliance with Monica, “If you
undermine trust in our system, you undermine everything.”

Marco lies with brio, misleading his family, his lieutenant governor,
his staff and his state about his whereabouts, even packing camping
equipment to throw off the scent from South America. He told whoppers
to his wife, a former investment banker who managed his campaigns and
raises his four sons (solo on Father’s Day). She put out a statement
quoting Psalm 127 to snidely remind her besotted husband “that sons
are a gift from the Lord.”

Jenny Sanford told The Associated Press on Friday that Mark had told
her he needed time to be alone and write, so she was stunned to learn
he was in Argentina on a “Roman Holiday.” Before he left to “write,”
she warned him not to skip off to the other woman.

Mark, who disdains rascals, agreed that he wouldn’t. Marco, who is a
rascal, skipped off.

Mark went back to work on Friday, giving his cabinet a lecture on
personal responsibility and comparing himself to King David, who “fell
mightily ... in very, very significant ways but then picked up the
pieces and built from there.”

Actually, the one thing David didn’t do after his adulterous fall was
build, because he was forbidden by God to construct his dream temple
in Jerusalem.

Sanford should give his piety a rest. He told his cabinet that the
Psalms taught him humility. (There’s a chance that a younger Argentine
boyfriend of Maria’s also taught him humility, by jealously hacking
into her e-mail account and leaking the governor’s missives.)

Sanford can be truly humble only if he stops dictating to others, who
also have desires and weaknesses, how to behave in their private
lives.

The Republican Party will never revive itself until its sanctimonious
pantheon — Sanford, Gingrich, Limbaugh, Palin, Ensign, Vitter and
hypocrites yet to be exposed — stop being two-faced.


From Maureen Dowd


Pious politicians of any party make me want to puke. I do enjoy seeing
their piety blow up in their faces. Sanford is a lame duck, and the
legislature and ordinary people of his state ought to begin treating him
as one.

It's nice to see Ms. Dowd hasn't lost her touch.

..