Sanford: The Latest

There is also make one that is imbeded in a shoe, but I think he was just confused by plate tectonics.

WTF is going on with this guy? KT-you may want to not post about it any more, but this is a whole lot to this story yet to tell. The lying and backtracking doesn't help. I would bet that his enemies in the state are thinking about impeachment.

I promise, I'm trying to swear off any more posts on the Mark Sanford saga. But it just won't let me.
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No, don't. Iran is falling apart and it was already a mess before all this, the economy is a disaster and no one is doing anything about climate change.
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If Mark Sanford wants to give us all something to laugh about good for him. We need it.
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So... is "I can be President because I went to Argentina alone on Father's day" an even better foreign policy qualification than "I can be President because I can see Russia from my state"?

"This morning, Sanford returned to the United States, explaining that he wasn't actually hiking, but rather, was in South America. He claims he was alone, driving around Buenos Aires since Thursday. When asked why his staff said he was on the Appalachian Trail, Sanford replied, "I don't know."
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Right. This guy is always alone.

KT:
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Since I'm a stupid Democrat (not a savvy, hard-nosed political reporter), I'd much rather chuckle about a Republican presidential possibility's truancy than understand TARP.
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Sanford, he's on the other side, isn't he? Hee Hee, Ho Ho.
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Really, the only thing missing from this story is the element that provokes righteous outrage in people like me.
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Isn't there something that you can report about how the governor said something that could be offensive to some people (especially those who don't like Republicans)?
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I'd feel ever so much better about chuckling...

SZ,
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I respectfully disagree (possibly because he's the governor of the state I happen to be living in).
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I really don't think this is funny. Sanford has always been a puzzlingly oblique figure of the "it's his world and we're just walking around in it" variety.
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But skipping the country sub rosa takes "weird mamma jamma" to a whole new level. A vacation is one thing; a middle-of-the-night disappearance from the workplace something else again.
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Does the story deserve national attention? Don't know, but I'll take my information wherever I can get it.

I'm kinda disappointed he wasn't on the Appalachian trail. The idea had changed my opinion of him in a positive way. Jim Vanderhei said that Sanford had always been odd - he used to like to walk around bare foot. Oh dear. I had hoped he was really a DFH at heart.
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Rose wins the thread so far.
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Stuart - I didn't know you were actually a Democrat?? I thought you were a deep thinker who preferred the Democratic candidate in the last election, but didn't consider yourself a member of a party. Have you changed your mind in recent months, or was I mistaken all along? (about the party part. I was obviously right about the deep thinking part).

Friar:
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It deserves national attention, but only to establish conclusively that another of the GOP's leading lights is a proven flake – not that we didn't already have a pretty good set of clues in Sanford's case.

What's all this fuss about batsh!tness about anyway? IOKIYAR.

Sanford's behavior isn't as weird as John McCain's suggesting that Obama's on Ahmandinejad's side. Totally weird.

I guess this would be funny/amusing if we discount the fact that his Lieut-Gov knew nothing and has no power to act in case of an emergency. I think Sandford has cooked his own goose; and that may cause SC's residents to take an interest in their next candidate for the governorship.

Kathy: now if only McCain and Graham disappeared without a trace for a while ??? we might get some respite from second guessing.

Question of the Day, ladies only edition:
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Let's say your are married to a man with a high-powered job that keeps him at work at least 60 hours a week. Let's also say that you have 4 - count them, FOUR - sons; the oldest of whom is in middle school. Let's also say that your husband gets a break at work and, rather than coming home to celebrate Father's Day weekend, just disappears. He doesn't tell you where he is going. All you know is that he left work and vanished. Let's also say that when your husband reappears a week later you learn he was in Buenos Aires, Argentina. Oh, and let's also say that there is no reason that he couldn't have taken you with him. Your family is wealthy and you could have easily paid for a stay at home child care. The kids are out of school. You don't work. There was no reason that you needed to be left behind.
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Okay, here is the question. Given all of this, your husband walks in the front door after his week-long adventure in Argentina and you say, " . . . . ?
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(Karen, I'd love to learn what the women in your office would say. You should gather up the best and post them here. I bet you get some hilarious reactions.)

Did Sanford tell his staff he was hiking, or did his staff lie to the public? Didn't the staff say that they had heard from Sanford?

Bonus question, what kind of Man takes a vacation to Buenos Aires, one of the most romantic and beautiful cities on the planet, without his wife and mother of his 4 sons?
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My answer: no kind of Man at all.

[...] 1.  Why did your staff lie about where you were? [...]

Bonus question, what kind of Man takes a vacation to Buenos Aires, one of the most romantic and beautiful cities on the planet, without his wife and mother of his 4 sons?
My answer: A man doing something that he doesn't want the wife and kiddies to know about.

Okay, here is the question. Given all of this, your husband walks in the front door after his week-long adventure in Argentina and you say, " . . . . ?
And what makes you think you'll be staying here tonight?

Since we are asking questions: here's mine:

Mrs Sanford: Did you know hubby was in BA but did not want to tell the press? OR Is it okay for hubby to disappear from time to time and leave you to cope alone? OR What was hubby writing that he needed to do it in BA: do they have research facilities lacking at home?

Choska:

A man that wants privacy so he can learn the tango.

A man that wants privacy to do the tango.

Bonus questions:

When did Sanford's wife realize his passport was missing?

How quickly is it going to take to discover that Sanford was not just driving along the coast in Argentina.

A London M.D. acquaintence came to an investigator meeting in Breckenridge, Colo. a week after getting married. He started his day by packing his skis and luggage, informing his wife that he was leaving for the Sates and kissing his wife goodbye.
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Of course, this was his fourth wife.

By far the most interesting thing Sanford, who is a Stepford far-right Republican, has ever done.

"There is also make one that is imbeded in a shoe, but I think he was just confused by plate tectonics."
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Maybe this will help him out next time:
http://jan.ucc.nau.edu/~rcb7/Camb.jpg

Here's my guess: cosmetic surgery. Maybe his wife knew but she didn't realize it would blow up this big so she didn't have a good backup story. He went to Argentina because our healthcare system sucks (and he didn't want anyone to find out.) The timing seems about right and he could recover in a spa-like setting while getting a tan.

FT:
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Does the story deserve national attention?
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Not of the fluffy and disproportionate kind it's getting.
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This is tabloidism and Hardy Boys/Nancy Drew stuff.
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This is "possible Presidential run", "His wife didn't know!", and Aruba Teen.
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Of course I understand that the governor and his policies are important to Carolinians, and I think that it's important for state government stories to make it into national news, just not this one for fluff reasons.

SZ:
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Noted. Sanford is scheduled to make a statement at 2:00pm EST (which time I'll be napping, but that's why we have the Intertubes), and maybe he'll say something sensible (insert snark here as needed).

Kathy:
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I didn't know you were actually a Democrat?? I thought you were a deep thinker who preferred the Democratic candidate in the last election, but didn't consider yourself a member of a party.
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I'm not a deep thinker, but I did prefer Obama over McCain.
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I'm a registered Democrat because that allowed me to vote in my state (as it should be) in the most important primary election in recent memory, which was Hillary v Barack.
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I consider myself a Democrat because I had been persuaded that Democrats would:
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1) end the costly and counter-productive Iraq occupation expeditiously
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2) provide a check on financial oligopolies and their destructive practices by refusing to socialize losses or tolerate the continuity of those responsible for national-scale failure
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3) renounce the stupid, unproductive bellicosity of neo-conservative foreign policy, and prioritize the rebuilding of American soft power
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4) restore a system of accountability that would equally and justly apply to government/private sector elites and ordinary individuals
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5) roll back the secrecy, domestic spying, torture and indefinite detention regimes of the past eight years in such a manner that these policies can never be resumed, and that all those responsible are held to account
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6) promote civic equality through the recognition of the fundamental right to marriage and clandestine-less public and military service
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7) explicitly reject monarchical Executive power theories through the enactment and enforcement of privilege-reducing and transparency-promoting policies and positions, returning Congress to its appropriate and diligent oversight role
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unhesitatingly implement Keynesian solutions adequate to the reversal of the country's economic problems in a manner designed to maximize the benefits to ordinary working Americans, and minimize the aggrandizement of industry opportunism and cronyism
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9) design and run emergency management and prevention systems competently enough to deal with Katrina-scope disasters
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10) implement a remedial system of policy adjustments designed to effectively reduce the nation's trade deficit to appropriate and sustainable levels
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11) immediately and substantially change the government's role in the elimination of the national economy's petroleum and gas dependency through appropriate energy policy
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12) provide quality health care to all Americans
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To the extent that I believe that Democrats in power are in the midst of reliably accomplishing these tasks, then I'm still a Democrat...how about you?