Tears of an Asshole

When the news of South Carolina Governor Mark Sanford's mysterious disappearance first broke, I assumed he was dead and hoped for the worst. When his wife said she had no idea where he was, I assumed she hated him as much as any semi-sane, non-Southern American and was glad to have a reprieve from that bony visage for a few days. When his staff came up with the lame Appalachian trail excuse, I was pretty convinced he was sodomozing a five-year-old boy in Thailand.

Well, it turns out I wasn't all that far off on all points. The Governor of Emo, as I've taken to calling him after that tearful clusterfuck of a press conference, suddenly finds himself in the charred shell of a dead political career. He's lucky his wife isn't the stabbing type - yet. And oh, that whole affair thing. The motivation behind Sanford's flight to his mistress is still fuzzy - was this a final, desperate rendezvous for a man who knew scandal was about to break? Or did a nefarious Romney spy catch him getting dirty on the Argentine coast?

Whatever the story, I loathe you, Mark Sanford, because you have set me up for this socially undesirable schadenfreude. It is pure bliss to see you cry on television...I just wish you were actually sorry for something other than yourself , or for all of the other terrible things you've done. The list of specifics is long, but in general, you tried to fuck your state economy through a lame attempt to reject federal stimulus funds for leverage in 2012, and you have consistently an unabashedly raised the spectre of murderous abortionists and dangerous minorities to subdue real policy discussion and political opposition while in office.

Emo Governor Mark Sanford looked like a lost puppy in the Atlanta airport today, and his swift downfall is the latest example of the fatal flaw in the GOP as we currently know it. When Christianity and morality become a hollow political crutches, it's so, so easy to abandon the principles with which you browbeat your political enemies and distract your less intelligent supporters. Cater to idiots enough, and you run the risk of thinking on their level. Republicans are out-stupiding Democrats, which might be one of the seven signs of the apocalypse.

Going from quarterbacks to band nerds in the span of a second Bush term has been rough on the leading men in the GOP. As they felt their influence and prestige quickly waning, Ensign, Sanford, and likely some still unidentified Republicans dealt with the bad news like any goodly white Christian male: they started sticking their dicks in EVERYTHING. It's a classic coping mechanism, and until politicians realize that ONLY Bill Clinton could get away with it, we're going to see a lot more tears on TV.

Ginger pointed out to me that the GOP is going to scandalize its way to a 2012 Haley Barbour nomination. He may be on to something...and only because Barbour is too fat and old to have sex.

~Slim

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UPDATE
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Haley Barbour becomes chairman of Republican Governors Association. Yet remains too fat and old to cheat on his wife, unless a manatee finds its way to the statehouse in Jackson.

~Ginger