On Sanford: This dawg don't hunt
Dianne Klein is not amused by the SC guv'ner
| Sunday, Jul 05 2009 12:36 PM
Last Updated Sunday, Jul 05 2009 12:36 PM
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SAINT SIMONS ISLAND, Ga. — Damn, dawg. That’s what I’m hearing a lot these days deep in the sweltering South. Except the dawg in question doesn’t play college football, or even futbol, far as anyone can tell.
But just give him time. The dawg Mark Sanford, otherwise known as the Republican governor of the great state of South Carolina just up the road, appears to be game for trying new things, especially exotic things like adultery in Buenos Aires, then telling the world it was love that made him do it.
Not lust.
OK, maybe lust first, but then love next. And a tan line. And “the erotic beauty of you holding yourself (or two magnificent parts of yourself) in the faded glow of the night’s light.”
(Damn, dawg. In our house, mention a tan line and you get a buzz-kill about sunscreen and probably malignant melanoma. And two magnificent parts of myself? I don’t recall ever having had such a conversation with my husband.)
But Sanford says he’s sorry, really really sorry, and to prove it he’s apologized to everyone who may have been hurt, or embarrassed, or just plain furious, over his indiscretions and lies. But, after all, it was love that sent him incommunicado to Argentina instead of the Appalachian Trail.
So, the thinking seems to be, that’s different. In some, mostly feminine circles, that means it’s more understandable. Less sleazy and hypocritical. Maybe even forgivable. And certainly way more likely to be adapted into a Lifetime TV movie ¡que romántico! than, say, anything involving Newt Gingrich.
In other words, adulterous love is akin to a disease, an I-know-it’s-wrong-and-I-really-should-stop but I. Just. Can’t.
Think alcoholism, and drug addiction, and obsessive-compulsive disorder. Think about the evil lure of Ben & Jerry’s, and Krispy Kreme and any recipe fried up by Paula Deen. Think about the devil making Sanford do it, but because it was deeply soul-satisfying while it lasted (at least for him), don’t dare lump him in with those stepchild addicts, the sexual ones, who, y’all know, seem a bit unclean.
Sanford’s tragic flaw, the thinking goes, is more pure, even noble, because he was, and maybe still is, seeing those cartoon hearts over his head. Any politician with enough cash can summon a call girl, or attempt a tryst in the stall of an airport men’s room, but love? You can’t buy that!
Tell me, is it really that hot outside? Sanford’s wife, who in a refreshing change of script, refuses to play the standard stoic victim, is the one who has been wronged. Their four sons are next in line. This affair is not about a hapless casualty of an arrow assault from Cupid, but about a weak, selfish man who, after a series of other amorous encounters that “did not cross the sex line,” succumbed to the charms of an Argentine beauty to the detriment of those he professed to love. (Note to South Carolinian taxpayers: the governor promises to repay his expenses for an official trip to Buenos Aires that crossed the sex line.)
Mark Sanford calls his adulterous relationship a love story, “a forbidden one, a tragic one, but a love story at the end of the day.” And he may well believe his own slapdash pitch. This is a guy who stood in the statehouse in Columbia and told his less fortunate constituents he would turn down $700 million in federal stimulus dollars on their behalf and for their own good. The less fortunate, however, cried bull, filed suit, and won. Sanford went crying to Argentina.
But Sanford came back delusional as ever, determined to serve out his gubernatorial term and even telling the press that he was “working on” falling back in love with his wife, the lucky gal. Then the state’s Republican senator, Lindsey Graham, went on “Meet the Press” and said he thought the people of South Carolina were willing to forgive the gov if he and his wife got back together.
Huh?
Come on, y’all. Enough with the telenovela. The dawg’s a dog. And this one don’t hunt.
— Dianne Klein of Bakersfield is a former staff writer and columnist at the Los Angeles Times and Latin American bureau chief for the Houston Chronicle.
