Family values

French policeman cuts off
wife’s lover’s penis with box
cutter, then hangs himself.

Another holier-than-thou family values Republican hypocrite confesses to an affair. Mark Sanford, Governor of South Carolina, mysteriously missing for six days, reportedly hiking on the Appalachian Trail, finally surfaced and, to what seemed like a surprise to everyone, confessed to infidelity in Argentina. He resigned as the leader of the Republican Governors’Association but has not yet resigned as Governor (and most probably won’t). Republicans, of course, ignoring the hypocrisy involved in their family values shtick, began praising him for “standing up like a man and admitting it,” and so on. Personally, I don’t care if our Congresspersons have affairs, or even mistresses, as so many European politicians do. Indeed, I would be surprised if most of them (on both sides of the aisle) aren’t either closet homosexuals or are presently having affairs. What does truly irritate me is the Republicans constant claim to be the party of “family values,” (think Larry Craig, Bob Allen, Ted Haggard and Mark Foley), and their treatment of others like Bill Clinton for the same behavior they themselves indulge in (think Gingrich, Livingston, Edwards, Ensign, Vitter, now Sanford, and many, many more). I doubt that Sanford will resign as Governor. Actually, I don’t think he should. He’s probably a lousy Governor but the fact that he had an affair doesn’t necessarily mean he can’t continue to govern. Of course when the whole truth comes out, it could be the case that he inappropriately used taxpayer or Republican Party money for his dalliances, as apparently did Ensign, but that is a somewhat different matter. It’s the hypocrisy, stupid!

I absolutely disapprove of making Sanford’s love emails public. I think it is entirely unfair that his private communications are being read to a national TV audience. His or her expressions of love should not be the subject of ridicule anymore than anyone else’s. Apparently at least one newspaper had them for months but chose not to release them until just now. It seems to me it’s like kicking someone when they are already down. What is the point of releasing them other than to just deliberately and sadistically humiliate someone. It’s enough that Sanford admitted to an adulterous affair, no doubt being warned that the emails might be released, we don’t need all the gratuitous and intimate details. On the other hand, I guess it could be argued that the Republicans brought it on themselves with their unprecedented attack on Bill Clinton and the unbelievably shabby Starr report with its unnecessary and sleazy detail. What goes around, comes around? Clinton may have been a womanizer but he wasn’t a hypocrite, which is much more than one can say of Republicans. I must say I have lost some respect for Olberman and Maddow who both seemed to delight in revealing the gratuitous details of a private affair of the heart. Just because they committed adultery doesn’t mean they did not have genuine feelings for each other, as was obviously not the case for Vitter or others simply employing prostitutes for their pleasure.

Dick the Slimy finally landed a book deal, two million dollars worth. It’s going to be a real hum-dinger because the editor-in-chief is none other than Mary Matalan who used to be Cheney’s aide. Between the two of them they will be able to create the largest web of lies ever assembled in a single book, with apparently no one else with editorial authority over them. I am not ordinarily in favor of book banning (or burning) but I think this one should be boycotted by everyone, unless, of course, you cannot resist fiction that goes even beyond even ordinary fiction.

LKBIQ:
Hypocrisy can afford to be magnificent in its promises; for never intending to go beyond promises; it costs nothing.
Edmund Burke

TILT:
Field mice are intelligent and, given time, will develop a strategy before doing something.