Gov. Sanford

The mystery is over. Governor Mark Sanford showed up at the Atlanta airport, having just returned from Argentina where he had a date with his mistress. In one of the dumbest press conferences I ever saw, he tearfully apologized to everyone for his affair. Strange, I don't remember whether he said that he broke it off, but he did say that he and his wife were going to work it out. Whatever happened or didn't happen, he really screwed up his life. News junkie that I am, I couldn't wait to check out MSNBC. Keith Olberman and Rachel Maddow were drooling all over themselves - another Republican has dished up enough scandal to take up two weeks of broadcasting. Their main goal, of course, is to ruin his reputation and career, and to drum him out of office in disgrace. They will probably be successful.
My view is that although he ought to do some suffering for his misguided love adventure, that alone should not keep him from finishing out his term as governor. But, I do think that he committed a grave, irresponsible error in being absent without leave for five days, and for this he should lose his job. He simply disappeared without leaving emergency instructions to his staff, or disclosing his whereabouts, thus leaving his state in an extremely vulnerable condition. If he were a Democrat, this would be quickly glossed over and forgotten; you all could easily come up with several examples of what I'm talking about. But, Republicans have a record of policing their own camp (as they efficiently did with Mark Foley, for instance) and I predict this will happen sooner, rather than later with Mark Sanford. His days are numbered. I was really behind him when he wanted to reject the bailout money, and I liked his conservative politics. He could possibly have been a credible candidate for President in 2012, but that is definitely out the window now. He made the dumbest of mistakes, and now he has to suffer some consequences. I don't feel sorry for him at all.