Week 2 in the saga of “The Thorn Birds of Argentina” is upon us, and the shambling, lovesick, undoubtedly soon-to-be-former governor of South Carolina has all the pundits shaking their heads. “What is he thinking?” asks Fox News, noting that the governor has “thrown out the manual” from the politician’s school of adultery management — confess, repent, slut-shame — and instead seems to be “trying to reveal so many details that there is no more muck left to rake.” But it’s high time we recognize our Christian troubadour for who he truly is: a political operative of the most canny sort.
From every corner of our nation, a chorus is rising as one to say: “To your lover — go!” Just leave us the keys to the governor’s mansion, OK? And remember to visit the kids. Now when was the last time you remember anyone giving a 49-year-old, married, Christian, Republican civil servant and father of four explicit permission to quit his stressful day job and follow his loins and his heart to a warm, sunny place?
Reviewing the now copious wealth of evidence, it’s hard not to conclude that this was the wily governor’s scheme all along. His wife busts him on the affair and his close Christian friends give him advice on how to end it with the mistress: “the first step is, you shoot her. You put a bullet through her head.” He takes that to be a metaphor to mean that he should really take a trip to Manhattan — accompanied by a “close spiritual advisor” — to break it off in person. His wife moves out. This time he decides it will really, really be over — if only he can spend five days “crying in Argentina” first. The media — perhaps aided and abetted by his now justifiably pissed-off wife — busts him at the airport. He responds with a rambling, wildly entertaining press conference that turns out to be a vindication of love. When his wife lets everyone know he can come home if he’s willing to “work” on the marriage, he calls the other woman his “soul mate” and damns his spouse with faint praise by saying he’s “trying to fall back in love” with her. “This was a whole lot more than a simple affair, this was a love story,” he tells a gleeful AP reporter. “A forbidden one, a tragic one, but a love story at the end of the day.”
Now who is going to side against forbidden, tragic love? Not even Michelle Malkin, it turns out, who wrote yesterday: “Dear Mark Sanford: Buy a one-way ticket to Argentina already, and be gone.” Even the nation’s marriage counselors have thrown up their hands in defeat. Greg Smith, a South Carolina marriage and family therapist, has said the governor is suffering from the “temporary insanity” of the lovesick, and another therapist said, of salvaging the governor’s marriage, “Boy, it looks more and more every day like a real long shot.” Fox Sexpert Yvonne Fulbright gives the marriage a 30 percent shot at survival, noting drily that “Usually the first step is letting people know that the wife is the preferred partner.” An “insider” in South Carolina has said, “He needs to really go take a hike this time.”
See how that works? Now the whole nation — and at this point, we strongly suspect his wife as well — is urging the man to get back on that old Appalachian Trail. To turn off his cellphone, his e-mail, the cameras — please God! — to keep those proclamations of love between himself, his soul mate, and maybe his future literary agent. So take a break, Mark. Raise goats. Frolic in the sun with your “exotic” new love. That “sparking thing” may get a little less sparky when it’s not inflamed by long-distance e-mails and romantic weekends. But then again, you know all about that already.
Former South Carolina first lady Jenny Sanford says her ex-husband is still seeing the Argentine woman who caused the breakup of their marriage.
Jenny Sanford appeared on ABC’s “Good Morning America” on Tuesday, saying Gov. Mark Sanford has not introduced their four children to the woman he’s called his soul mate.
Gov. Sanford disappeared for five days in June 2009 and told no one where he was going. The governor came back to South Carolina and admitted to a yearlong affair with Maria Belen Chapur.
Mark Sanford said in May he spent several days in Florida with Chapur to see if they could restart their relationship. He has refused to talk about her since.
A call to Sanford’s spokesman was not immediately returned Tuesday.
See video of Jenny Sanford’s appearance on “Good Morning America” here:
Rep. Nikki Haley, R-Lexington,who garnered the most votes in the GOP gubernatorial primary gives a victory speech to supporters at the Capital City Club in Columbia, S.C., on Tuesday, June 8, 2010. Haley will face Rep. Gresham Barrett in a runoff election in two weeks for the GOP nomination. Her husband Michael, son Nalin and daughter Rana stand behind her. (AP Photo/Rich Glickstein/The State) (Credit: Rich Glickstein)
Folks, a creepy, self-promoting weirdo who nonetheless has presented evidence of, at the least, a close personal relationship with Haley, has been under relentless attack from the Haley campaign and her supporters since he went public with his claim a week before the primary election.
Haley came in first in the primary, but still faces a runoff with Gresham Barrett.
There’s also a “people in glass houses” argument that can be made with respect to this campaign. Specifically, Barrett – who has trumpeted both his Christianity and fidelity on the campaign trail – is widely-rumored to have had an affair with a former staffer. We also know for a fact that Barrett is lying through his teeth when he says that his campaign had “nothing to do” with the pressure that was placed on our founding editor to come forward last month with his acknowledgment.
So, there you have it. South Carolina politics, everyone. The candidates who aren’t cryptic, damaged accused criminals are sanctimonious Christians who constantly cheat on their spouses.
Members of Congress who live in the C Street House pay $950/month for private rooms in a $1.8 million townhouse, steps from the Capitol, with maid service and laundry included. How can the building’s owner afford such a deal? Easy — the C Street house is classified as a church.
Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington filed a complaint in April. The OCE’s job is to vet complaints and refer cases to the appropriate ethics committee.
Congressmen who live in the house have been downplaying the unusual nature of the situation ever since the John Ensign and Mark Sanford scandals thrust the house into the limelight. The OCE investigation could be abandoned within 30 days or go on for three months before its taken up by the ethics committee.
Alex Pareene writes about politics for Salon. Email him at apareene@salon.com and follow him on Twitter @pareene More Alex Pareene
By the end of the day, Nikki Haley could be the Republican nominee for governor of South Carolina, running to replace the sex scandal-tarred Mark Sanford. But because this is South Carolina we’re talking about, two men have come forward to say that they had extramarital affairs with Haley. The first one released phone call logs and text messages. The second has now taken a lie detector test.
Larry Marchant, a local lobbyist and former strategist for Haley opponent (and dim-bulb bigot) Andre Bauer, says he had a one-night stand with Haley at a “school choice convention” in 2008. The local Fox affiliate applied the polygraph. The results: inconclusive:
“I can tell you if I was going to bet my next paycheck as to whether or not he was telling the truth about the allegations he has made, I would bet that sooner or later he would pass that test successfully,” says the second licensed examiner, Joseph Gallimore.
Polygraph scores range from negative to positive based on whether a subject appears to be lying or telling the truth, said Davis. A score of +4 is required to “pass” a polygraph test. Marchant scored +3 on the question of whether he had sex with Nikki Haley during a trip to Salt Lake City, as he has publicly claimed.
Yesterday — again, because this is South Carolina — Lt. Gov. Bauer himself released the results of the polygraph he took, which he said proves that he wasn’t trying to push the affair story to damage Haley. (Marchant, suspiciously, “admitted” to the indiscretion the day he was fired from the Bauer campaign, less than a week before today’s election.)
A campaign worker literally stepped in-between Michael Haley and another reporter who started asking him questions, saying Michael Haley wouldn’t do interviews even though he appeared like he was about to say something.
Haley is ahead in all recent polls, but she still might have to endure a June 22 runoff if she can’t crack 50 percent of the vote. As of yesterday, Public Policy Polling had Haley at 43 percent.
South Carolina Gov. Mark Sanford talks during an interview with The Associated Press about his relationship with an Argentine mistress, in his Columbia, S.C., Statehouse office on Tuesday, June 30, 2009. During the interview Sanford said that he "crossed lines" with a handful of women other than his mistress but never had sex with them. (AP Photo/Mary Ann Chastain) (Credit: Mary Ann Chastain)
It’s one thing to just refuse to dignify rumors of sexual misconduct with a response. It’s another to deny them but then announce that you will resign the post you have not yet been elected to if, despite your denial, they turn out to be true. That is kind of weird. That’s also Nikki Haley’s new position:
Cohen: “If something comes out after you win the primary, or after you win the general election become South Carolina’s next governor, if something were to come out that validates the claims that have been made against you — in terms of stepping out on your husband and on your marriage — would you resign as governor because basically the way you’ve handled it has been an absolute, 100 percent denial? Would you resign or would it be dragged out?
Haley: “Yes.”
Cohen: “Yes you would resign?”
Haley: “Yes.”
Two people have come forward to claim that they had “inappropriate” relationships with the married Haley. One of them is a prominent local blogger and sometime political activist who’s released some supporting evidence. The other is a lobbyist who worked for one of Haley’s opponents up until the day he came forward to claim he had a one-night stand with Haley in 2008 (he has provided no evidence).
Haley has flatly denied both men’s claims. This promise lends some weight to the denial. (On the other hand — I can’t really think of a way to definitively “prove” an old affair with someone, assuming you didn’t, you know, film the affair.)
Haley benefits from the fact that her enemies are particularly unsympathetic. The blogger making the claim is a misogynist creep who’s clearly taking great pleasure in the attention he’s receiving. The Haley opponent the other guy worked for is a dim bigot. And just the other day, a South Carolina state senator used an atrocious racial slur in reference to Haley, who was born in India and raised a Sikh.
So the worse it appears to get for her, the better off she might end up being in the polls.
To ? or Not to ? 
Clean and Sober 
The things I carry 
When I lost the ability to type 
Pop art, the beaded edition 
The beautiful banality of high school 
The unemployed meet MacArthur’s tanks 
Demi’s last night out 
One day you’re in 
Pitch and catch 
Whip-it 
