Written by: Tom Sawyer

Nevada Senator John Ensign and South Carolina Governor Mark Sanford are two men who have brought attention upon themselves for the weakness that plagues many men: women. I’m not saying adultry/fornication is appropriate at any time or excusable simply because they are men – that is an entirely different discussion. What I would say is this isn’t really good for the Republican party and when looking at things without bias it may not be good for the United States.

Both men were possibly going to run for president in 2012; either one of them could have turned out to be the best thing for this country, but now we will probably never know. What we do know is that the Governor from the great state of Alaska has two less competitors (scary) and these stories include some details late-night monologues are made of.

The Pot And The Kettle

Ensign admitted to “violating the vows of my marriage” and said “it was the worst thing I have ever done in my life.” He is saying the right things except the affair lasted from December 2007 until August 2008 so he did this over and over and over again! But wait, there is more. The woman he had an affair with and her husband were good friends (of his family’s) and their families were close. I don’t know the Senator, my Senator since I now live in Las Vegas, but he looks like the kind of guy that would look down his nose at those of us on “main street.” However, his actions and subsequent statements are only missing a double-wide and a Jerry Springer episode. You can count him out of the presidential race, but since he is a vet he has a career to fall back on.

A sign to let all of us know that people in glass houses shouldn’t throw stones is his (Ensign’s) opinion when former Senator Larry Craig was caught and arrested in an airport bathroom sex sting. Ensign was very critical of Craig stopping just short of urging Craig to resign, but hinted that he should. “I wouldn’t put myself hopefully in that kind of position, but if I was in a position like that, that’s what I would do,” Ensign said. “He’s going to have to answer that for himself.” Now Ensign has to answer too.

Gone Missing

If a husband, or wife, stays out all night, there are going to be some questions that need answering the following day and additional nights MIA would only make the situation worse. How, in the world, would someone think they can go missing to Argentina for an entire week – while holding public office – and not have to answer for it? Maybe Mark Sanford wanted to get caught so he could be with his mistress or maybe he was stressed after being raked over the coals in his state over bailout money. Whatever the case may be, a resignation wouldn’t be surprising.

So as if getting caught isn’t bad enough, I don’t understand how these public figures allow their text messages, emails, etc. to make it to the media. Somehow Sanford’s emails, in which he sang the praises of his mistress’s body and agonized over their “hopelessly impossible situation of love”, became public knowledge. How does that happen? Specific emails between Sanford and “Maria” were made public knowledge. Amazing.

Apparently Sanford’s wife knew about all of this before Sanford left on his trip to Argentina. Sanford’s wife, Jenny, asked him not to contact her, or their sons, before leaving and that is one reason why his whereabouts were unknown to his family. Earlier this week, Standord’s staff told reporters that he was hiking on the Appalachian trail. Sanford told the newspaper this morning that he didn’t know why his staff said he was on the Appalachian Trail but that “in fairness to his staff,” he had told them he might do that. You don’t know why they would say that even though you told them you might be doing it? Now that is some politician double-talk!

On a professionally careless note, the Argentina Embassy wasn’t aware of Stanfords presence in their country – something odd for a U.S. Governor. Additionally, South Carolina’s Lt. Governor, the person who would be in charge during Standord’s absence, and Sanford’s security agents weren’t aware of the trip either.

It Doesn’t Look Good

This isn’t the first time something like this happened, but it is some bad timing overall – as if there is ever a good time for adultry. It doesn’t look good for the Republican party, it doesn’t look good for Nevada and South Carolina, it doesn’t look good following a day when all fathers should be honored and generally speaking it just doesn’t look good.

Tags: John Ensign affair, Mark Sanford affair, Nevada Senator admits to affair, South Carolina governor goes missing

This entry was posted on Thursday, June 25th, 2009 at 2:59 am and is filed under Political Buzz. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.