On the day after Mark Sanford promised us he wouldn’t apologize to us any more — a promise to which I intend to hold him if I can (fat chance, huh?) — you would expect that he’d be busting his hump trying to pass that modest agenda he proposed for his last year in office, right?
You poor sap. You do not know Mark Sanford. No, on the first day after his State of the State that he could have been repairing his relationships with lawmakers and trying to get things done for a change, he was spotted in Washington hanging out, and apparently hoping to get photographed shaking Scott Brown’s hand:
Washington (CNN) – On the morning after delivering his final “State of the State” address in Columbia, South Carolina Gov. Mark Sanford strolled through the Capitol rotunda Thursday afternoon along with South Carolina Rep. Bob Inglis.
Asked why he was in Washington, Sanford, a former House Member, walked toward the House floor as the chamber was about to vote and told CNN: “I was going to catch up with some friends on the House floor.”
Sanford said he has not yet met Massachusetts Sen-elect Scott Brown.
Another Republican governor, California Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger, was also visiting House lawmakers today. He is slated to meet with Speaker Nancy Pelosi and the entire House delegation from his state.
What else did you expect from the guy who appeared on Fox News 46 times during the time that he was trying to make sure that we didn’t get our share of the stimulus money that was going to be spent anyway?
You know, the one good thing about these last few awful months with this guy was that we were all certain that his outrageous national ambitions were a thing of the past. And now this. Man oh man oh man…
I said at the time we shouldn’t write him off. The whole “redemption” thing among religious conservatives combined with his ever-more-apparent narcissism means unless he goes to Argentina and stays (right–he has a soul mate, but unfortunately he isn’t “somebody” in Buenos Aires)…..
I’m afraid you’re right. No one would ever ask him to lollygag on the air in B.A., and we’re tired of him here, so he goes to Washington hoping to blunder into some attention…
I missed most of the speech last night — I was cooking dinner — but I did catch that creepy-weird bit where he asked the folks to give the little lady a hand for being such a class act while he dragged their homelife into a ditch.
He said it in that same off-hand, lollygaggin’, oh-here’s-another-point-of-interest tone that he uses to ponder Ataturk or talk about how ordinary folks everywhere are tightenin’ their belts or Tom Friedman or Milton Friedman or the weather or what have you. And it just kind of gave me the willies. The tone was not at ALL appropriate to speaking publicly (if one is to do such a thing, and I would recommend against it) about his betrayal of the mother of his children.
Was it just me? I’ve heard that tone for years now and never attached much import to it, but this just really made an impression on me. A bad one. But it’s hard to explain just what it was about it…
Explain why this is one iota different from John McCain explaining to the voters how his life was altered by his stay in the Hanoi Hilton so that he did not think of himself first. Then, he turns around and takes up with a rich sugar momma and dumps his wife who stood by his side while he was incarcerated. I see NO DIFFERENCE. Yet Brad drones on and on and on and on and on and on about how disgraceful Mark Sanford is but maintains this man crush on McCain. This is a real head scratcher.
(I just can’t wait to see the spin. I’d almost be willing to pay money to read it).
Not following you here, bud. I mention how I sensed something was weirdly amiss at a certain moment during the State of the State last night, and I try to explain what the source of that feeling might be, and you bring up John McCain?
Sorry, but that doesn’t help answer the question I raised.
Once again, did that moment feel strangely off-kilter to anyone else?
Bud, if this is a head-scratcher, perhaps you should endure what McCain endured…and maybe you could see a difference.
No. He’s behaving like a politician. Be it John Edwards, Bill Clinton, Rudy Guliani or John McCain. They all have the wierd off-kilter moments. Seems like business as usual to me.
Brad–I thought Sanford learned that in Folksy School, along with W, who, I believe is the only member of his family to speak like the narrator in The Big Lebowski. I’ve been watching the Clinton-Bush Haiti appeal video on Hulu over and over again, and I get creeped out by how W’s eyes look so shifty — but Bill, who actually IS shifty, looks so steady-Eddie.
I envision Sanford having a John Edwards moment or two (as reported in your famous column)–maybe he actually speaks like Charles Emerson Winchester, but I do have to give him credit for coming out with it all more or less at once when he was truly nabbed–no DNA analyses required….now if he’d just STFU!
Alas, there is no 12-step program for recovering narcissicists. Perhaps we could take up a collection and have bumper stickers printed that say, “I’m a Friend of Mark S.”
Folks, I am duty-bound to inform you that the governor’s spokesman now says this was an economic development trip. You can read more here…