Mark Sanford Is Bitter, Has Plenty Of Time On His Hands
When he’s not speaking at Podunk Rotary Clubs about “Forgiveness,” trying to stonewall investigations or holding “circle jerks” on South Carolina’s ridiculously high unemployment rate, S.C. Gov. Mark Sanford is apparently writing book reviews for Newsweek.
Yeah … dude has lots of free time on his hands these days, apparently.
From Sanford’s review of Ayn Rand’s The Fountainhead …
Howard Roark is an architect who cares nothing about the world’s approval; his only concerns are his integrity and the perfection of his designs. What strikes me as still relevant is its central insight—that it isn’t “collective action” that makes this nation prosperous and secure; it’s the initiative and creativity of the individual. The novel’s “second-handers,” as Rand called them—the opportunistic Peter Keating, who appropriates Roark’s architectural talent for his own purposes, and Ellsworth Toohey, the journalist who doesn’t know what to write until he knows what people want to hear—symbolize a mindset that’s sadly familiar today.
Are you kidding us? Is this guy for real?
It’s one thing that Governor Narcissus has this sort of leisure time at his disposal, but c’mon – he can’t even make it through a damn book review without projecting his self-absorption (and taking a pot shot at the press)?
Seriously, Mark. Grow the f*ck up. You got busted chasing some Argentine tail and then you got caught lying about it – ruining your family and ending your political career. Oh, and there’s a better than average chance that you broke some laws in the process – to say nothing of shredding your fiscal conservative credibility.
Which reminds us, you have also taken a reform movement in South Carolina that desperately needs to succeed – that absolutely must succeed if this state is ever to rise above its historical mediocrity – and treated it like your own personal whore.
The only person to blame for all of that? Yeah … look in the mirror, asshole.
Frankly, it’s past time that you took that over-tanned, sanctimonious ass of yours back to Florida where you came from.
Now as for Rand, somebody bought us a copy of Atlas Shrugged a while ago and we have yet to read it. Unlike some people, we just don’t have huge chunks of free time at our disposal …
Comments
By Liberty For Me on October 27th, 2009 at 4:21 pm
OK Fits..are you trying to project something that isnt there??
Try reading one of the greatest books ever…..hopefully your depth of perspective has not hit a glass ceiling.
By Groundball on October 27th, 2009 at 4:32 pm
Hopefully he will soon have more free time on his hands and can devote more time to book reviews. At the same time, if he has indeed completed this review, it will be the first thing that he has completed and accomplished in the last 7 years. Hooray for this buffoon.
By Jonny D on October 27th, 2009 at 4:38 pm
Actually Fits, I think you’re the one who is bitter, what with Rep. Delleney’s pitiful showing this afternoon. For the first time, you have actually played the “carpetbagger” card. I never thought I would see such a desperation move from you, the King of New Media. Come on Fits, celebrate good times!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YwEMxYggoKQ
By Michael Weissenfeld on October 27th, 2009 at 4:57 pm
Generally, when you pull out a quote from a longer piece and then comment on it, the quote you pull should bear some logical connection to what you say about it. From what I can tell, you grabbed a random paragraph from the governor’s piece on Rand, then copied the usual vitriolic bullshit from past posts.
Why even bother trying to make the connection? Just grab a few sentences from the latest article about Sanford, and go straight into your usual one-liners about his tan, and be sure to throw in some irrelevant imbecility about “circle jerks” or whatever comes to your tiny mind that will needlessly offend the largest number of people.
Oh, and learn how to write. The phrase “that over-tanned, sanctimonious ass of yours” doesn’t work, since presumably the governor’s ass isn’t also over-tanned. Unless you happen to know otherwise.
By anonymous on October 27th, 2009 at 4:57 pm
Sanfraud deserves every bit of it and more.
Go Fits!
By Earl Capps on October 27th, 2009 at 4:59 pm
Read it. That book, while a long long read, is one of the most philosophically profound things you’ll ever read.
By Mab on October 27th, 2009 at 5:15 pm
For the historically challenged — will someone please explain the photo?
~Mucho Gracio~
By Go Figure on October 27th, 2009 at 5:30 pm
Why is it that every mention of Sanford by FITS must be accompanied by the phrases App. Trail and Argetinian mistress? Seriously, is there anyone out there – perhaps some WWII Japanese soldier in the Soloman Islands now surfing the web – that hasn’t heard this story 3 months ago?
FITS # 1 state issue is gov’t restructuring. Yes, Sanford is severely compromised and will likely never recover, but he’s the only person that matters who is even talking about it.
By SnakeMD on October 27th, 2009 at 5:36 pm
Actually, Sanford did not write this book review. His Argentinian girlfriend, Maria is secretly pumping him the material for all of his upcoming reviews. Together they are working on a new book called “Tango for Dummies.”
Mark and Maria have confessed that they will appear next year on Dancing with the Stars. Jenny, says she will give Mark one more chance, even if he goes through with the audition. Love has no boundaries. She says, no matter how bad he dances he is still the father of their children. (she is such a saint!) Governor Sanford is such a Renaissance man. You can’t help but like him. He is an every man’s man. Next month he will appear on the cover of Cigar Aficionado. Sources tell me he will tell all that we ever wanted to know about SC’s gubbermant and how he secretly got the blessings of the Dalai Lama concerning the Confederate Battle Flag.
By James the Foot Soldier on October 27th, 2009 at 5:59 pm
The true class act in all this is Mrs. Sanford – holding off on filing the divorce papers until the luv-guv is out of office – what a champ.
By ohara on October 27th, 2009 at 6:28 pm
OMG! He’s done it again! I can’t stop laughing! Just when I thought the world news & the economy would have me in a terminally morose state, along comes Gov San-fraud to lift my spirits!
Wow! What introspection! How does he do it!
Sanford is doing BOOK REVIEWS? On AYN RAND? Modeled on his total introspection about self, self, self? his e-mails? his Rotary experiences? He’s a comedic gift from gawd. Oh bless his cold little under-educated heart. I need autographed copies. This is too much.
By Sue on October 27th, 2009 at 6:30 pm
He’s working on his next career. It’s a drag being homeless and jobless.
By ohara on October 27th, 2009 at 6:32 pm
PS-Thanks FITS, for bringing me my much needed laugh-but I don’t think Florida will take him back.
By BIN News Editorial Staff on October 27th, 2009 at 7:35 pm
Will, Our Funding Editor wants to know two things. First, did Mark Sanferd approve your last post? And, are you still on his Christmas Card list? He could make a comeback someday. And you sure need a real job.
By Tyler Durden on October 27th, 2009 at 8:10 pm
Nothing says maturity like telling someone to “[g]row the f*ck up.”
By Ynot on October 27th, 2009 at 8:10 pm
Better suggestion:
Read Sanford’s book entitled ” The Trust Committed to Me”.
Question: what trust is he talking about?
hint- its a fund.
By alaindelon on October 27th, 2009 at 9:39 pm
Sinfraud is a vagina because if he had a pair,he would have resigned in June like a man.Harrell outed himself as a vagina today.It’s either Sinfraud has a hump of dirt on Harrell or he promised him to partake in a threesome with Maria Chapur next time she’s at the gornicator’s mansion.
By Mike Honcho on October 27th, 2009 at 9:57 pm
Sanford is bitter, Will? Pot meet kettle.
I don’t want to misuse the word constantly overused hypocrite, but let’s go ahead and drop it. When the author pleads guilty to a crime, only to go on a public campaign to blame everyone and no one for it and has the audacity to sit in judgment of Sanford, hypocrite is the only word that seems to fit.
Maybe you should look in a mirror. The Colts hat isn’t the only thing hiding something, the man wearing it is, too.
As for the reform movement…what exactly are you doing for it.
Here’s a hint: nothing
By MKinVA on October 27th, 2009 at 9:59 pm
“I’ve grown more critical of Rand’s outlook because it doesn’t include the human needs we have for grace, love, faith, or any form of social compact.” Interesting that all of a sudden he’s become sooo touchy feely. He is so pathetically transparent it’s disgusting. The only human needs he cares about are his own.
By Ralph on October 27th, 2009 at 10:25 pm
I don’t think Sanford has anywhere near the brainpower necessary to be analyzing Ann Rand. This is her remarks on deficit spending many years ago.
“The government has no source of revenue, except the taxes paid by the producers. To free itself—for a while—from the limits set by reality, the government initiates a credit con game on a scale which the private manipulator could not dream of. It borrows money from you today, which is to be repaid with money it will borrow from you tomorrow, which is to be repaid with money it will borrow from you day after tomorrow, and so on. This is known as “deficit financing.” It issues paper money, which is used as a claim check on actually existing goods—but that money is not backed by any goods, it is not backed by gold, it is backed by nothing. It is a promissory note issued to you in exchange for your goods, to be paid by you (in the form of taxes) out of your future production.”
By alaindelon on October 27th, 2009 at 10:47 pm
great photo of Sinfraud…Wailing wall perhaps?
By Mike at the beach on October 28th, 2009 at 1:05 am
Speaking of losing cred- find a few hours and read “Atlas Shrugged” and “The Fountainhead.” You shouldn’t brag about not being well read if you’re going to try to pull off hurling invective as wittily crafted as “Grow the f*ck up.”
By fitsnews on October 28th, 2009 at 7:14 am
Mike-
We’ve read the Bible cover-to-cover, everything Shakespeare and Homer ever wrote, all the American classics, Virgil, Tolstoy and Dostoevsky, Aristotle and Plato, the Federalist Papers, Sun Tzu, Orwell, Conrad, Hemingway, Nabokov, Kerouac, Joyce, Hesse, Faulkner, Salinger, Marx, Smith (Adam), Keynes, C.S. Lewis, Robert Penn Warren, Agatha Christie, Graham Greene, Capote, Harper Lee, Chekov, Twain, Dickens, Tolkien, Vonnegut, Hugo, Poe, Melville, Austen, Cervantes, Yeats, Wordsworth, Huxley, Hawthorne, Thoreau, Frost, etc., etc., etc. ad infinitum.
We’ve read dozens of books about the War Between the States (Freeman, Foote), about Nazi Germany and the Holocaust (Toland, Speer, Wiesel), and of course, about politics and sports.
Are we as well read as some? No. Are we better read than most? Probably.
Our point? We’ll get around to reading Ayn Rand when we get around to it.
-FITS
By This Site Makes Me Sad on October 28th, 2009 at 8:33 am
Fits, you may have read the Bible cover to cover, but it clearly had little effect on you. Reading through the stories you write – especially the ones about Mark Sanford, who reportedly was once your good friend – I continually find myself wondering how any one man can harbor so much ill will towards others. You blithely destroy people’s lives, gleefully celebrating – and profiting – when they destroy their own. You actually seem to enjoy kicking people when they’re down. Doesn’t this bother you at all? You’re obviously a smart, talented guy. You could be doing so much… contributing so much. I had hoped fatherhood might wake you up. You have a little girl, now, and one day, you’ll care very much what she thinks of her dad. Do you really think she’ll be proud to tell her friends that Daddy specializes in cheap shots and soft porn?
By Huhhh??? on October 28th, 2009 at 9:19 am
Well, apparently Mark, Ayn and Greenspan were all too dim to know Howard Roark had a lot of peons building his creations.
By TotalWench on October 28th, 2009 at 9:41 am
alaindelon: if he had a pair and not a vagina, he’d have resigned? What an absolute moron you are! Look at the behavior of his wife – maybe if all of you jerks had a vagina instead of a pair, you’d behave with some dignity.
By patricia on October 28th, 2009 at 10:27 am
Sanford the philosopher. hmmmm Nope, just can’t accept that, no matter how many books he reads or reviews.
Philosophy is for those with full stomachs.
By scooter on October 28th, 2009 at 12:44 pm
It is a shame we continue to beat this dead horse. Sanford is past being a joke. He is without any common sense, and thumbs his nose at all of SC. C Street sure did a good job helping him see that he is accountable to no one other than his pals there. Read the book The Family, and see where his attitude comes from. For the good of SC, resign.
By David on October 28th, 2009 at 3:14 pm
Actually, you could argue that Sanford’s delusional narcissism make him perfectly representative of Rand, a second-rate Nietzchean to whom the concept of “responsibility” was more or less meaningless. But! She was much better at infidelity than Sanford. So there’s that.
By Mike at the beach on October 28th, 2009 at 4:01 pm
Wow people, don’t go getting all sensitive on me now…we all read the same stuff in undergrad, right?
I happen to dig y’all, and just thought you could do better than “Grow the f*ck up,” that’s all, so put that exposed nerve back in your pocket. Luvyameanit, but lighten up!
By Laura on October 28th, 2009 at 4:53 pm
This Site Makes Me Sad,
It makes me sad that people who constantly quote “The Bible”, translated by an English King centuries ago, practically never mention that Jesus became so sick of the government & religous leaders (housed under the Temple, no seperation then of church & state then) that he trashed it. As he should have.
Was it not Peter who cut the ear off of a centurion, a Roman cop? Forgive me if I have the wrong apostle.
I am sick to death of folks who beat the Bible, practically never saying anything close to the message Jesus and others were trying to get across. Nor do they try to address any real issues. What some in our military do in secret that would make the devil himself cringe. The number of sex offenders in our country. That perhaps abortion is best in cases of rape & incest.
But, my oh my, how very little you folks have to say when one of your own is caught with their pants down, outside of “we’ll pray for you, here’s your free pass”.
Do you even read Hebrew or Aramaic? Ever talked with a Jewish person? Read the Dead Sea Scrolls? Know anything about Constatine & The Council of Nicea and how what books would be published in the Bible was decided?
Stop beating the Bible so loud & hard. Your tempo is way off. With Christians like Sanford in office & supporters of like minds, “Satan” probably has his feet propped up, watching the show, laughing like a hyena.
God help anyone in this state with any semblance of an open mind & true moral sense.
By SnakeMD on October 28th, 2009 at 8:25 pm
RE: Post by “This Site Makes Me So Sad” I recognize your various postings by your linguistic style and your particular phraseology. You seem to be hung up on the word “soft porn.” Are you a Baptist minister? I have never seen “soft porn” on this website. I think the proper word here is “cheesecake” photos. Certain states several years ago graded obscene material as XXX, XX, or X. I have never seen full nudity here or even simulated sex acts here that would loosely qualify as soft porn. Are you the same person who doesn’t like to dance, because it reminds you of having sex standing up? As it says in the Old Testament: “…if the eye offends thee, then pluck it out…”
By This Site Makes Me Sad on October 28th, 2009 at 9:07 pm
Um, Laura, I’m not sure why you directed that rant at me. You know nothing about me – my religious views, my politics, my opinion of Governor Sanford, or anything else – except that I find this website petty and depressing and think its editor is wasting his gifts.
By This Site Makes Me Sad on October 29th, 2009 at 7:05 am
SnakeMD… I hate to burst your bubble, but until yesterday, I’d never commented here before. If you recognize my “rhetorical style,” perhaps you’ve stumbled upon it somewhere else. I’m a professional journalist, not a Baptist minister. You are correct in pointing out that “soft porn” is too strong a term for what goes on here. Forgive my hyperbole. It wasn’t really the “cheesecake” photos I meant to complain about, anyway. Though they cheapen the site, they’re harmless, and I guess a certain segment of the readership finds them entertaining. Whatever. My real problem with this site is the backstabbing, sell-out-your-friends-for-money, mean-spiritedness behind it. I realize blogs like this exist all over, but maybe because I know so many of the people who get hurt here – and know their relationship to the editor – this one really gets to me.
And Laura, my mind’s about as open as they come. Having an open mind doesn’t mean refraining from all judgment. Our minds are made for thinking… for taking in information, processing it, and following where it leads. In other words, searching for truth. And if there’s one truth I’m sure of, it’s that the way we treat each other matters. Fair play, compassion, love. Those things matter. Probably more than anything. And I didn’t even need the Bible to tell me so!
By SnakeMD on October 29th, 2009 at 6:57 pm
To, By This Site Makes Me Sad,
Thanks for the rejoinder. I see where you are coming from. Yes, you are probably right. Reading these articles is like juggling with dynamite–you know somebody is going to get hurt before you finish reading them. However, this is the new journalism–raw and uncensored. Hell, even the State newspaper sourced this website yesterday! Go figure.
By This Site Makes Me Sad on October 30th, 2009 at 6:45 am
Juggling with dynamite is a pretty great analogy, SnakeMD. I just wonder how long it’ll be before this destructive, venal website blows up in its editor’s face…
By Candy on October 30th, 2009 at 3:06 pm
I just can’t wipe the grin off my face – not since the Boeing announcement. Funny how this site is not celebrating as everyone else is doing right now. All you anti-Sanford posters must be hurting, instead of being grateful, all you come up with is how much the state had to pay to get Boeing. I have lived in the Northwest, I know the impact Boeing has on the region. This is a huge lost to them and an even greater gain to South Carolina. Why don’t y’all set your hatred aside and imagine the money rolling in in the next 10 years. Yes, you may get an influx of emigrants from other states, but it’s just that much better for your economy. For years the Northwest complained about people rolling in, but their economy improved with more property and sales taxes. A lot of good things are coming your way. I too wish to move there now.
By Soft Sigh From Hell on October 31st, 2009 at 7:26 pm
Almost a century ago Mencken went on a one-man jihad against judging (in his case literature) on the basis of what we–or some higher authority or standard–thought it should accomplish, but rather argued that we should judge on how well the author accomplished what he set out to do. Mencken and his eventual allies succeeded totally in that literary quest. But we still hear echoes in other realms: “YOU should be THIS!”
Why not instead enjoy the diversity, even when quirky, as here? Or simply seek elsewhere? The fact that this (or any other “newsy” or political web site) is not the same as the editorial pages of the WSJ or CSM or NYT, or–to look lower–some set of think-tank screeds, detracts from nothing. One can like chili dogs and roast beef, carnival and opera, roisterous barroom palaver and the debate society.
By This Site Makes Me Sad on November 1st, 2009 at 8:27 am
I see your point, Soft Sigh from Hell. (Great name, by the way!) I am someone who actually DOES appreciate both high and low culture. And there’s certainly logic in Mencken’s argument that we should “judge on how well the author accomplished what he set out to do” instead of on what we WISH he would do. If what Will Folks sets out to do is destroy people’s lives to line his own pockets, well, then… bravo, Mr. Folks! Take a bow! I’ll admit he’s very good at what he does. That’s very different, of course, than saying that what he does is GOOD. There are plenty of talented marksmen out there, too. Should I praise them for hitting the bulls eye, even when that bulls eye happens to be somebody’s skull?
By Mike Traynor on November 4th, 2009 at 2:54 pm
I know Mark Sanford, and I can tell you that he never read “The Fountainhead,” or “Atlas Shrugged,” for that matter. I am sure he heard an abridged version on tape or read the cliff notes. But Sanford can’t spell “creativity” without a spell-checker.
He wrote another editorial about “Extraordinary Popular Delusions and the Madness of Crowds,” and got the title wrong. Spell checker does not work when you leave out a word.