Sanford Must Go

By Walter Krull

The fact that Republican South Carolina Governor Mark Sanford was still in office 24 hours after his surreal press conference during which he admitted an extramarital affair with a woman in Argentina is simply not acceptable. Sanford should have resigned immediately.  While it may be natural to simply look at Sanford’s actions at face-value as another politician with personal marriage troubles, there is something far more serious and relevant to focus on. Sanford is yet another politician at the governor level who abdicated his duty, displayed severely reckless behavior and threw away all personal responsibility and authority he had over the state and citizens he governed for sex and romance.

The reasons why Sanford’s relationship with his wife, his adultery and family situation is none of the public’s business and I will not focus on it in this column. But, I will say that in Sanford’s case, there is a reason to look at his wife and their troubled marriage more than usual in a case like this only because Sanford’s wife was a key influence in the state capital. Mrs. Sanford was one of the governor’s closest advisers. She sat in on many meetings and often shaped discussion and policy inside the Governor’s Office.  I find that wrong also. Just at the people did not elect Michelle Obama to open her mouth and give her opinion on anything, Mrs. Sanford too was not elected. I find it completely disagreeable that a spouse should or would have any substantial role in shaping policy. 

But that aside, Governor Sanford displayed a totally reckless, even dangerous, character flaw in judgement so selfish and void of sound mind that his resignation should have come immediately. This is the head of a government who literally sneaked out of the country to fly hours away for a tryst with a woman in Argentina while back home in South Carolina, the state government was literally left leaderless.  As governor, Sanford misled his staff including security officials to his whereabouts. Sanford did not notify second-in-command to where he was going or how he could reached. The governor also ignored and broke state law since South Carolina law mandates that whenever the sitting governor leaves the state’s borders, a formal temporary (and technical) transfer of power must be given to the second-in-command. That was not done.   Sanford essentially junked all authority, responsibility and law for a honey in South America.  He has to go.

It’s completely absurd to think that an elected and sitting governor of a state would literally keep his staff, security, party and others in the dark as to where he was but yet that is what apparently took place. Think about it. A governor of a state was literally missing in the minds of many in the capital. The man lied like a junkie. He sneaked like a junkie too by slipping in and out of the state to take a flight to Argentina to get his fix. His office, the law, his responsibility–everything–meant nothing to him. Imagine the chaos and fallout that would have occurred if a natural disaster, large-scale crime or any other unfortunate or serious incident developed while he was missing.

Sanford’s actions are not unlike two other governors in recent times who abdicated the duty of the office for personal sexual satisfaction.  Eliot Spitzer of New York was a serious case too because the man’s actions were severely reckless and hypocritical. They also smacked of an arrogant abuse of power and inflated ego. Spitzer’s cavorting with paid escorts–a technicality to cover-up prostitution–was something he used to prosecute and some would say persecute others and put them in jail. He also held countless press conferences and delivered scores of speeches concerning his pursuit of punishing those in the private and public sectors who abused their positions and the public trust. He had to go.

Then, there is to me the worst one of them all in recent times: New Jersey Governor James McGreevey.  I still believe (and have from the moment he resigned) that this man should have served prison time for what he did. This man was so reckless with power and so void of responsible decision-making that he placed his lover in a critical state security position in the aftermath of the attacks of September 11, 2001 so that he could be physically close to him (his lover was another man). Yes, while Ground Zero was still smoking, while the bodies of residents of his state were being recovered and buried and while others went missing, McGreevey’s paramount concern was to place a lover in the state’s critical security position even though the man had no reason, accomplishments, skills, experience or knowledge to be in that office. 

Keep in mind that when McGreevey decided to make a newly-created office assigned the responsibility to protect and defend the Garden State from terrorist acts nothing more than a convenient place to put a lover so that he could see him faster and without needing to create reasons, tensions were high in the country. Military jets were still patrolling the skies of America. Police and National Guard officers were on the streets with machine guns and we were waiting for the next attack. But McGreevey was more concerned with getting his jollies off with a lover. Reckless. Irresponsible. Criminal.

The actions of these three men (and there are others of course) represent just one of the reasons Americans are fed up with politics and officeholders in general. Our elected officials are increasingly resembling the old European aristocracy that filled capitals–disconnected, uninterested, over-compensated and filled with contempt or lack of any duty to the masses they served.

Sanford is the latest disgrace that has turned our ‘leadership’ into nothing but folly. The incompetence of our elected officials is so bad that even Democrat strategists immediately went on the news networks to caution anyone from making ‘political hay’ out of Sanford’s situation. They know, as we know, there is so much dirt in Washington and the state capitals that nothing but a mud-bowl would develop from such endeavors. The public around the nation should take this latest example of political recklessness and use it to deliver messages to incumbents and leaders of both parties that enough is enough.