Election Correction

Formerly missing South Carolina Governor Mark Sanford just has a talent for staying in the public eye.

First he disappeared for a few days without telling anyone where he went. Then he came forward and said he was hiking the Appalachian Trail, earlier this morning he changed his story and said he had flown to Buenos Aires Argentina. The flip flopping alibi was beginning to raise a lot of questions among the press and public.

Now Governor Sanford has added a new twist, publicly confessing to an affair with a woman he visited on this clandestine trip. Sanford immediately announced his resignation as head of the Republican Governor’s Association but declined to address whether he will remain in office for the duration of his term. Sanford joins Republican Senator John Ensign as potential 2012 contenders to recently announce extra-marital affairs.

This announcement seemingly capped off the most tumultuous legislative session in South Carolina history. Sanford, who was already known for routine confrontations with the GOP led state legislature, had recently been handed several rebukes as the legislative body overturned ten of his spending vetoes and forced Sanford to accept Federal Bailout money, which he had sworn not to do.

More as it develops

SC Gov Mark Sanford

No matter who reported it, no matter who asked, the question was the same. “Where in the world is Governor Mark Sanford?”

Gov. Sanford had apparently taken it upon himself to head out for a few days of R&R. Depending upon the reports circulating the state, he had either given the slip to his security detail or actually left with their knowledge in a state vehicle. Either way, nobody seemed to know where to reach him.

According to Fox News, Lt. Governor Andrew Bauer was politically stiff armed by the Governors staff when he questioned them about the location of the Chief Executive. Sanford’s wife acknowledged that she had not seen or heard from him in several days (including father’s day). This raised many questions as Sanford is a father of four and regularly campaigned on the issues involving family and children.

“I cannot take lightly that his staff has not had communication with him for more than four days, and that no one, including his own family, knows his whereabouts,” – South Carolina Lieutenant Governor Bauer.

After the media firestorm hit Sanford suddenly appeared, claiming to have been hiking the Appalachian Trail. He is scheduled to return to his office sometime late tomorrow. Unfortunately it seems that the genie may have been let out of the bottle. Maybe its our jaded society, keyed to expect the worst and most depraved from our political leaders. Maybe we are all just cynical bastards, but based on the comments of the stories a lot of people are wondering if there may be more to this story than Governor Sanford would prefer to let on.

Frankly I don’t know. Given political history it would not be the first time that a politician “clearing his head” was involved in a lot more than they initially confessed to (See Clinton, Bill). If there is nothing else to this story I think Sanford was guilty of extremely poor judgment. I can appreciate wanting to get away from it all, but given his role as head of a state and a married father, that is something that isn’t likely to be in the cards anytime soon. At bare minimum, he should have placed the state in the temporary care of his Lt. Governor and told his wife where he was.

But if there is more to it, he needs to learn from history as well. History tells us that in todays media situation, his odds of keeping a secret big enough to cause him to go off the grid for a few days aren’t that good. He would be best served by coming forward with the full story. They say he is a potential candidate for 2012, if there are negative aspects to this he may still have time to rehab from the damage. If he tries to go underground with this and it blows up later, he may be out of luck.

According to People magazine it appears that America’s favorite disintegrating family unit has officially fallen apart. Jon and Kate Goselin have filed for divorce in Bucks County Pennsylvania. The couple has been living in Berks county for over a year, no word on why they chose an out of county location to file the paperwork, but it was likely an attempt to avoid the media.

As a still fairly newly married man I have to say I find this sad. It wasn’t that long ago that I was facing the prospect of marriage with a certain degree of anxiety and nervousness. For the sake of any readers who may be my wife let me specify this is strictly due to my own insecurities, it had nothing to do with being sure she was the right one for me. But I do remember thinking how when I was a child, we would have to fill out paperwork that would have blanks on where to add our parents address and phone number.

Gradually the one space for information became two, one for Dad and one for Mom. It was almost like it was assumed that you were going to be from a divorced home. I don’t know when it started being that way, but good luck finding any sort of form thats not like that now.

Marriage is a tremendously complicated thing, there are issues that you have to address with your spouse, and inevitably some of those issues lead to crankiness, hurt feelings and a few arguments. Have I done some things I didn’t want to do, just to make the wife happy? Oh yeah. And I have no doubt that its gone the other way as well. But thats what you have to do. You give up your right to think strictly about your own happiness and convenience when you slip that ring on the other person’s finger, let alone when you have eight children sitting at the dinner table calling you “Dad”.

Now I will confess I have seen the show. Kate Goselin has what can be charitably described as a ‘difficult’ personality. She has what I call a 4+1 personality, meaning that the only way she sees to count to five is her way, and she doesn’t understand why people keep bringing up 2+3 or 5+0. By now her shrieking at Jon over his failure to use a coupon or complaining about his breathing is the stuff of youtube legends.

But at the same time he has problems all his own. I don’t give a damn how difficult your wife is. I don’t care how much you are fighting or how long it has been since you have had sex, or whatever excuse he might give. THERE IS NO JUSTIFICATION FOR CHEATING. There is no “unless”, no reason to say “but”. It just does not belong when you are married.

So who is right in this? As is the case in most divorces I think there are three sides, what the groom says, what the bride says and what really happened.

I will let you decide who comes out clean in this case.

Watch John Hodgman’s fantastic sendup of President Barack Obama on the issue of whether or not Obama is a nerd.