Somebody Tackle Him
The unspooling of S.C. Gov. Mark Sanford continued unabated today, as South Carolina’s embattled and increasingly erratic chief executive painted himself into a corner with additional admissions that contradicted previous confessions about his affair with Argentine lover Maria Belen Chapur – and cast a wider net of women with whom he has engaged in inappropriate conduct.
Specifically, the governor admitted that he had “crossed lines” with other women, but did not name those women and did not elaborate on what he meant by that expression, other than to say Chapur was the only woman with whom he had crossed “the ultimate line.”
Sanford’s confessions also netted him an investigation by S.C. Attorney General Henry McMaster, who seized on inconsistencies in the governor’s statements as a basis for requesting a criminal probe.
Aside from the legal nuts and bolts of the implosion, the galling inadvisability of the governor’s comments has Palmetto political observers – and national observers – wondering if the governor has the mental fitness to remain in office.
Among the head-scratching offerings, Sanford told the Associated Press that Chapur was his soul mate but that he was trying to fall back in love with his wife.
“This was a whole lot more than a simple affair, this was a love story,” Sanford told the AP of his relationship with Chapur. “A forbidden one, a tragic one, but a love story at the end of the day.”
Sanford appeared to be on track to survive the scandal, but after today the clouds have darkened considerably.
“Who’s advising him to keep talking?” one of our PR advisors asked our founding editor.
“I think he’s passed the point of being advised,” Sic Willie replied.
Comments
By CNSYD on June 30th, 2009 at 5:28 pm
While in Congress he apparently learned a lot as a member of the International Relations Committee.
By MrB on June 30th, 2009 at 5:35 pm
That is one of the funniest headlines I’ve seen in awhile.
By Todd Sentell on June 30th, 2009 at 5:37 pm
Dear Mark,
Oh, boy.
I’ve cried real tears for you, old friend. But I know you too well: you have always done what you were gonna do and you did. God almighty, son, you did it up good this time.
When I begged you to go a little more crazy and have some college fun thirty years ago you wouldn’t. While I was sitting in front of the dean of students for streaking naked around campus you were writing speeches and studying in the library. You were our student body president and the campus mischief maker was your roommate. As your best friend at the time, I was proud of you then and I’m proud of you now. New York hot shot to real estate tycoon to congressman to governor of my beloved South Carolina, all in khakis and button downs. A real preppy hurricane, you. I have followed your career and admired every minute of it since we first met outside the freshman dorm in 1979. But you’ve got some fixing to do now, wild man. Who’s to say the first lady does, too. I know. I was married once, for a long time. To a Palmetto State beauty. Funny, we met in Columbia. Anyhow, hunker down with the first lady the best you can. It’ll take a bunch of time. But I guarantee you: life will go on, but with a limp. I know.
And there’s one more thing I really need to tell you … man to man … old friend to old friend … from a father of sons to another: all the answers to anything and everything in life you have from this point on until you die are going to be found in those precious sons of yours. If you devote the rest of your life to what your sons need and want from you everything will be fine. All of your questions about what to do in any situation—professional, political, personal, familial¬—will be answered after you ponder your boys. Just do that simple, but vital thing every moment. I know this, too. It’s the secret to living well. Hell, it’s the secret to life.
You’ll do this because I know you and still understand you and love you as a friend. You’ll do this … I know you will … and you’ll be fine. So will the first lady and the people of South Carolina. Tell them hello for me. I miss them, and I’m pulling for them, too.
Your Friend,
Todd
Todd Sentell is the author of the lunatic adventure, Toonamint of Champions. He teaches at a north Atlanta school for kids with learning disabilities
By a democrat on June 30th, 2009 at 5:38 pm
He obviously wants a divorce so he has to keep adding fuel to the fire.
By GGIH on June 30th, 2009 at 5:39 pm
The clouds have darkened for sure. No one wants to watch this tortured soul try to sort out his ruined life for the next 18 months. I was not sure whether I wanted him to resign or not — I am now. This has got to stop.
By w on June 30th, 2009 at 5:52 pm
he needs to make like a shepard and get the flock outta here.
By lou on June 30th, 2009 at 5:57 pm
Todd, that sounds like good advice. I hope Mark Sanford listens to you. He actually sounds like he is trying to sell a sack of dung to me. Our formerly very private first lady is giving interviews and modeling on Huffington Post. While our Governor looks like a lunatic.
Rome is burning people. Wake up.
And please try to focus on the problem the Governor really has….
He left the state, the country even, without a way for any one on earth to contact him.
That is what We the People need to focus on. When you ignore your job, in lieu of anything, it’s a problem.
IT * IS* a problem people. Please remember that. The Governor does hold power in the state where he agrees or not. He can make live better or worse for people, real human beings with problems.
This particular Governor made life pretty ugly for his wife and kids….
and us. He made it unbearable for me in particular but again leaving the state with your cell turned off after meeting up with the lady and leaving it on at other times is a TREMENDOUS concern folks.
What really happened and why so much embellishment?
By madcock on June 30th, 2009 at 6:01 pm
Yeah, I agree with The State. No reason for this guy to resign.
OTHER THAN THE FACT THAT HE’S GONE FREAKING INSANE!!!!!!!!
By Cooky on June 30th, 2009 at 6:05 pm
So does Todd’s letter to Mark mean that Sanfraud read this blog???????????????
By follydude on June 30th, 2009 at 6:06 pm
maybe he has to keep the job in order to retain his salary.
Jenny is the checkbook of the family, no?
By yarrrr on June 30th, 2009 at 6:08 pm
Before this interview, I thought there was a 80% chance he was going to make it with the rest of his term, his wife, and there was a chance of a political comeback… now he is totally farked… he’s going to lose everything and is going to end up in a padded room with his pants around his ankles screaming “how do you solve a problem like maria”…
mark sanford has been driven to madness by what alasdair macintyre calls an epistemological crisis… he should have been put on a week cool down period to get his social bearings back… you don’t put someone like this in front of a microphone…
———–
http://www.cambridge.org/us/catalogue/catalogue.asp?isbn=9780521854375&ss=exc
What is an epistemological crisis? Consider, first, the situation of ordinary agents who are thrown into such crises. Someone who has believed that he was highly valued by his employers and colleagues is suddenly fired; someone proposed for membership of a club whose members were all, so he believed, close friends is blackballed. Or someone falls in love and needs to know what the loved one really feels; someone falls out of love and needs to know how he or she can possibly have been so mistaken in the other. For all such persons the relationship of seems to is becomes crucial. It is in such situations that ordinary agents who have never learned anything about academic philosophy are apt to rediscover for themselves versions of the other-minds problem and the problem of the justification of induction. They discover, that is, that there is a problem about the rational justification of inferences from premises about the behavior of other people to conclusions about their thoughts, feelings, and attitudes and of inferences from premises about how individuals have acted in the past to conclusions expressed as generalizations about their behavior, generalizations which would enable us to make reasonably reliable predications about their future behavior. What they took to be evidence pointing unambiguously in some one direction now turns out to have been equally susceptible of rival interpretations. Such a discovery is often paralysing, and were we all of us all of the time to have to reckon with the multiplicity of possible interpretations open to us, social life as we know it could scarcely continue. For social life is sustained by the assumption that we are, by and large, able to construe each other’s behavior, that error, deception, self-deception, irony, and ambiguity, although omnipresent in social life, are not so pervasive as to render reliable reasoning and reasonable action impossible. But can this assumption in any way be vindicated?
… more at the link …
By ethel krabitz on June 30th, 2009 at 6:09 pm
what a doofus. either he’s unhinged or setting the stage for his resignation then flight to the arms of his lover. either way, what a sad douchebag. Wonder if his flame travelled with him to Munich, etc when he went to meet with the European office of the SC Dept of Commerce? hmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm
By Susan on June 30th, 2009 at 6:20 pm
He’s got to go. I wasn’t sure if this was going to sink him or not, but after today he just needs to resign and maybe get some help. If I were Jenny Sanford, today would put the finish on it.
By Not Sayin', Just Sayin' on June 30th, 2009 at 6:51 pm
Best FITSNews article column ever.
By Gina on June 30th, 2009 at 7:18 pm
The man seems mentally imbalanced.
Can someone stop him from self-destructing further?
By jaded on June 30th, 2009 at 8:13 pm
A Democrat, I agree with you. Dude wants a divorce, and he’s doing everything he can to make it happen. Sanford is “trying to fall back in love with his wife”? What a jerk! Jenny should boot him for good — right now.
And I hope he sticks around —- that would put the final nail in the SC GOP coffin.
By Fashizzle on June 30th, 2009 at 8:15 pm
Sawyer and English should quit tonight — no way they would let him do this so they must have been cut out of the loop. Looks like Sanford is just winging it now. What a train wreck. He’s toast.
By jaded on June 30th, 2009 at 8:16 pm
And where are his freaking handlers? Can’t someone shut him up?
I can’t imagine what it must have been like to be a member of Sanford’s staff during the past few weeks. I wonder how many of them will stick around for the complete meltdown that seems inevitable.
By Todd on June 30th, 2009 at 8:17 pm
In the above picture – the guy between and behind Jack Kenzie and Mark – is telegraphing “what a dumb shit!”
By Mab on June 30th, 2009 at 8:25 pm
Gina,
A shrink could. If they would.
Shoulda Coulda Woulda.
By seesdifferent on June 30th, 2009 at 8:26 pm
funny, dude, Mark Wrong Way Sanford/Jim Marshall.
By madcock on June 30th, 2009 at 8:30 pm
This reminds me of the old Saturday Night Live skit with Aykroyd as Nixon and Belushi as Kissinger, where Nixon’s talking to the portraits on the wall as Kissinger tries to get him to go to bed.
Sanford badly needs a Kissinger.
By Notgonnahappen on June 30th, 2009 at 8:43 pm
IMHO, Sanford’s “unspooling” is the result of the realization that in order to be with his sons and do “the right thing” in the eyes of friends and SC society, he will have to live with a woman who is not his soul mate, who he realizes he does not love (and maybe never did) and in order to keep the family intact, will have to kiss her a$$ for what he has done, for years to come if not for the rest of his life with her. In short, he is faced with he sees as a most likely misearable, unhappy life with his wife, or potential happiness with his soul mate…but hey, like I said, it is just my humble opinion. It could be a mental break down.. I just don’t think so.
Personally I think he should resign and join Maria.
By Adam on June 30th, 2009 at 8:43 pm
Will: What of Nikki Haley? I hear new grassroots Repubs everyday wondering why she as a “family woman” is not taking a stand against Sanford. Other reform Republicans are starting to do this.
By jaded on June 30th, 2009 at 8:48 pm
It’s as if I’m watching a really, really bad movie.
By Charles on June 30th, 2009 at 8:52 pm
I think I’ll try this out on my wife, tonight. Hi honey, I know we’ve been married for 23 years but I’ve met this lady, and she seems kind of sole matey to me. Would you mind if I hang out with her for a while, just to see how I really feel? Now don’t be alarmed, I’ll do my best not to cross the ultimate line. Also, please do not jump to the wrong conclusion. I am willing to consider the possibility that I should stay married to you. After all, I have invested 23 years of my life in this deal, and I’m not sure I want that to be a total waste of time. Also, I do love our son. So if you will just bear with me for a while, I’ll let you know how our marriage is doing.
By King Cotton on June 30th, 2009 at 9:02 pm
I’m not sure I’ve ever seen anything like this. Every day, it’s a new interview and a new revelation, or more like 10 new revelations.
Sanford’s communication staff has to feel like the little Dutch boy trying to plug up an increasingly pourous dike. It’s going to give way sooner or later, and Sanford doesn’t seem to care.
It’s almost like he’s trying to get kicked out of office without actually resigning.
By michelle nimmons on June 30th, 2009 at 9:22 pm
Sanford appears to be a very cold hearted man. I believe he’s trying to destroy every chance he might of had to reclaim his family because he doesn’t want that family anymore. No “Dad” would publicly humiliate his children as he continues to do by going on and on about this affair. How in the hell does he plan to fall back in love with his wife after he’s told the WORLD that his soul mate is the other woman? Does he think his wife is deaf and blind? Jenny is letting him ruin his chances at reconciliation because she has no intentions of taking him back. Good Christian woman or not I don’t see her taking him back. Forgiveness is one thing but, Sanford’s antics are too much. I hurt for his wife and son’s. Cubby says they are together out of duty. It makes one wonder if he ever loved her or just loved what she could help him accomplish with her brains and money. Maybe they are the Republican version of Bill and Hilary. I don’t really care who he loves but, I want him to STOP throwing his sons under the bus.
By Rylyn on June 30th, 2009 at 9:44 pm
I truly believe he has had a mental breakdown. SC is once again the laughing stock of the US. Can’t he just shut up…leave Jenny, move to Argentina, I really don’t care, just shut up! Jenny should tell him to get on the first plane out of SC. I will admit that at first I thought, okay he just made a terrible mistake, he is sorry and it will go away but doesn’t look like he wants it to go away. Right now it would serve him right if he leaves SC moves to Argentina and then Maria finds her real soul mate…one without a 4 sons and a wife!
By anonymous on June 30th, 2009 at 9:55 pm
Cash for hotel rooms? uh uh uh …that was my fault.
Sir, did you you mislead your staff? uh uh uh …that was my fault.
Cash for airline tickets? uh uh uh …that was my fault.
Sir, I thought you said you only met with your mistress three times? Sir, now you are saying seven? Sir. what gives? uh uh uh …that was my fault.
Sir, I understand that last year you were on a trade mission in Argentina, but now we understand that you were just having a rendezvous with Ms. Chapur at the Buenos Aires Hilton, what’s up with that? uh uh uh …that was my fault, I’ll give that money back!
Sir, you admitted today of having inappropriate sexual relationships with several other women, but you claim that you never had sex with? uh uh uh …that was my fault.
Sir, do you have anything else that you need to tell us? uh uh uh …NO! I paid cash for everything else …uh uh uh so
uh uh uh …that’s about it.
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By dave on June 30th, 2009 at 10:13 pm
what a f*ckin narcissist.
get over yourself. resign and spare us this weekly dose of shame.
By PandaChris on June 30th, 2009 at 10:18 pm
This just goes to show you what many Republicans have been saying for years.
Mark Sanford is right on the issues but is a dreadful human being.
A different type person would have been able to build a reform minded GOP instead of setting the reform movement back for a decade.
His supporters have crossed the line and are now enablers of his destruction of the reform movement.
What a sorry state of affairs!
By For real on June 30th, 2009 at 10:37 pm
Someone in that office needs to put his ass in that suburban and take him to the Appalachian Trail tonight. Take away his cash and cell phone and give him a broken compass….maybe 4 more celebs will pass on before he finds his way back and he can at least get off the front page of every paper in the US —– this is like watching a Springer episode unfold on the web
By James the Foot Soldier on June 30th, 2009 at 10:51 pm
I’ll repeat my first post from last week when the story broke:
Senator Knotts: Launch impeachment hearings.
Governor Sanford: Resign.
Mrs. Sanford: Find yourself legal counsel: Victoria Esslinger at Nexsen Pruit will have Governor Sanford admitting to being in Dallas on the grassy knoll before she’s through with him.
By Not Sayin', Just Sayin' on June 30th, 2009 at 11:00 pm
FITS, who would Sanford’s “Kissinger” be? Tom Davis?
By baker on June 30th, 2009 at 11:08 pm
Will,
I know I give you some grief about various things here, issues upon which we really disagree.
But, really, I am curious. You know this guy pretty well, right? What do you really think is going on here?
I’ve considered that maybe this “crossing the line” with other women admission was just Mark Sanford being overly forthcoming and responding to his guilt….that maybe he’s “admitting” to episodes that weren’t so out of line — I don’t know…dancing with someone or something like that. Because he feels he’s got to fess up to everything weighing on his mind.
Is that possible?
Or, maybe he really got his groove on with a variety of other women. Who can figure it?
I’d be interesting in your insights in this man’s psyche.
By V on June 30th, 2009 at 11:08 pm
Someone seriously needs to put duct tape over his mouth and lock him in a room somewhere!!!
Enough is enough man!!!
By Malcolm on June 30th, 2009 at 11:17 pm
It must be sun poisoning.
By Seriously? on June 30th, 2009 at 11:24 pm
Resign. It’s what you want. or should i say, it’s what will lead to what you want…MARIA.
Joel should resign immediately. Sanford’s killing his future. Sawyer would be better off to collect one of those unemployment checks he’s been railing against for a few months than to let Sanfraud destroy his future.
By yarrrr on June 30th, 2009 at 11:25 pm
“that maybe he’s “admitting” to episodes that weren’t so out of line”
he’s probably talking close dancing, kissing, groping, or lap dances… I’m pretty sure he met his “soul mate” dancing in Uruguay… but he should be smart enough to know how what he says comes out…
By Calhoun Fawls on June 30th, 2009 at 11:27 pm
I take no joy in being right last week that if Sanford did not resign he would cause himself and his his family more pain.
It is only going to get worse. If Sanford would have resigned last week he would have been spared all this. Maybe he did not want to be.
It’s odd. It’s sad. It’s insane, maybe. I have seen it before with some men and, yes, women who got caught cheating by their spouses. Their spouses get angry, and the only way to fire back is to brag about others the spouse had no idea about. But, I have never seen such played out in public like this. I feel for the Sanford children.
By anonymous on June 30th, 2009 at 11:29 pm
Sanford says he ‘crossed lines’ in marriage
Details emerge from 1995 trip
…information surfaced that he had a romantic interlude as early as 1995 on an official congressional trip to Chile.
But people familiar with one such encounter said the governor had a brief romance with an American businesswoman in June 1995 while he was traveling in Latin America on a congressional trade mission trip.
…the then-freshman congressmen met a woman during a dinner hosted by the U.S. Embassy in Santiago, Chile, and later arranged a private, romantic encounter with her while in Chile. The woman was led to believe that Mr. Sanford was unmarried, and when she found out later that he had a wife, she had no further contact with him, the sources said.
Congressional records show that as a congressman in 1995, Mr. Sanford traveled to Argentina, Brazil and Chile from May 30 to June 5 on a trade mission
Records show that Mr. Sanford did not take his wife on the trade mission, although other members of the committee did -each paying separately for their expenses.
http://washingtontimes.com/news/2009/jul/01/sanford-says-he-crossed-lines-in-marriage/
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By Jeffy on July 1st, 2009 at 12:01 am
Gov Bauer!! I swear I still belive Sanford went hiking.
By Notgonnahappen on July 1st, 2009 at 7:21 am
And this dufus made a tape:
http://www.nydailynews.com/gossip/2009/06/28/2009-06-28_aides_tale_of_john_edwards_sex_tape.html
By GGIH on July 1st, 2009 at 8:02 am
Does anyone else think the most shocking revelation in this latest interview is that Governor Sanford, like, dances? Or is it just me.
By Clueless on July 1st, 2009 at 8:33 am
So does this mean that he won’t be running for President?
By jrush on July 1st, 2009 at 9:28 am
The old saying is “…find yourself in a hole…stop digging”, but now that we have learned of his love for early mornings, country music, and the hum of the diesel engine of heavy equipment (as stated in one of his love letter emails) it is time for mark to stop running the backhoe! MARK…STOP DIGGING!
By Jane Jones on July 1st, 2009 at 2:56 pm
GGIH,
I agree on the dancing…..think he was teaching her the official state dance, The Shag?
By BT on July 1st, 2009 at 6:06 pm
To Todd; Your advice is right on. I think Sanford is trying to tell the truth on all fronts. Who cares if he danced with a few other women. He is going through a troubling time emotionally. He needs his wife and his children to support him and help him through this. His commitment and future are with them. He will get over this passion he feels for someone else. This is a time when he needs the support of his wife and children.
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