Where in the World is Carmen Sandiego?

Once again a self-proclaimed paragon of virtue bites the dust. This time it is Governor Mark Sanford of South Carolina, a particularly self-righteous Republican who refused, as a matter of principle, to accept any of President Obama’s stimulus money and who, as a U.S. Congressman, repeatedly suggested that President Clinton should resign when his affair with Monica Lewinsky was revealed. Governor Sanford is a big promoter of State’s Rights, which generally means he is opposed to the states having to honor the U.S. Bill of Rights, but that’s just my opinion.

Sanford, who is something of a Southern political anomaly, being an Episcopalian in a Baptist world, only just today held a press conference at which he admitted that he had been engaged in an extramarital affair with an Argentinean woman for the past year. His wife had tossed him out of the house a couple of weeks ago after months of counseling apparently failed and the Governor promptly flew to Argentina to commiserate with his mistress. Unfortunately he failed to advise anybody official that he was leaving the country, which resulted in some confusion. His staff compounded the problem by telling the media he was “hiking the Appalachian Trail”. I can envision this phrase now becoming a popular euphemism for illicit sexual activity.

I have to admit that I feel some tacky, juvenile pleasure in seeing a sanctimonious douche-bag publicly disgraced, but I know that is just the devil whispering in my ear. The reality is that it is a personal tragedy for several innocent people, including the Governor’s wife and four sons, and enjoying the suffering of others is really bad karma. However, there is a lesson to be learned when a person who has made a career of impugning other folk’s character is suddenly publicly confronted with their own moral failure.

The Bible, which Governor Sanford has a lot of faith in, says in the Book of Job, Chapter 15, Verse 34, “For the congregation of hypocrites shall be desolate”. There are plenty more verses that decry hypocrisy as being really un-Christian and Jesus himself pretty clearly said you can’t go to Heaven if you are a hypocrite. This is not to mention all the admonitions against adultery in the Bible, but it is surprisingly clear that hypocrisy is by far the greater sin. Christian theology designates those who do not hold themselves to the same moral standard they impose on others as the very lowest of the low. This analysis is not to be considered any sort of endorsement of Christianity, but there is a great deal of wisdom in the Bible, most of which Governor Sanford seems to have missed.

Anybody who has talked to me for more than two minutes knows I have a less than stellar opinion of the current Republican Party, most especially its leadership. They all seem to be snake-oil salesmen or supercilious pricks. Governor Sanford is a prime example; he seems to have overlooked the fact that he is just one of several billion flawed humans and that there is a huge difference between supporting principled behavior and personally attacking those who fall short of it. Clearly my beloved Democrats are just as morally challenged as everybody else, but they spend way less time condemning the rest of mankind.

I have way too many personal and moral failures to sit in judgement of anybody but perhaps John Wayne Gacy, so I’m not going to excoriate the Governor for making the same mistakes that many otherwise decent human beings have made; love, after all, is a most pernicious form of insanity, and Governor Sanford, while an odd sort of fellow in many ways, is not the typical trailer park Bible thumper. When the South Carolina General Assembly was considering approving religiously themed automobile license plates, he opposed the legislation and said "It is my personal view that the largest proclamation of one's faith ought to be in how one lives his life." He was dead on the money with that one, unfortunately.