RSS Feed Menu… to see whether one – just one! – of the many media sources that have condemned the Bush administration’s terrorist surveillance program will deplore the publication by Reuters of Mark Sanford’s love e-mails. What on earth does the publication of this embarrassing and hurtfully intimate material add to a story that was already plain enough?
NB – here’s Zachary Roth at Talking Points Memo:
Reading these intensely personal communications, it’s hard not to feel some sympathy for the human beings involved. But that doesn’t mean they don’t make good reading.
No, it means they make terrible reading.
mlindroo // Jun 25, 2009 at 3:00 am
> What on earth does the publication of this > embarrassing and hurtfully intimate material add to a > story that was already plain enough? Well, I guess conservative partisans _could_ make a logically consistent case that GOP politicians such as Mark Sanford really deserve as much discomfort and public humiliation as humanly possible. Sanford is after all a social conservative and a potential presidential candidate. He has been advocating socially conservative positions, including strong opposition to gay marriage. As such he is expected to set an example and act as a role model. His credibility will be undermined if he cannot even honor his own marriage wows. There is already a common argument that voters do not trust the GOP in part because they see them as hypocrites in their personal lives. Maybe it’s unfair to hold David Vitter, Mark Sanford, Rush Limbaugh and Larry Craig to a higher standard. But that’s the price you pay, and Democratic politicians have a different Achilles heel (e.g. Tom Daschle has no business dodging taxes since the Obama Administration almost certainly will have to introduce tax hikes at some stage).MARCU$
ottovbvs // Jun 25, 2009 at 5:19 am
David, don’t be so naive. You had no problem with endless bloviating about black dresses. It was very apparent from his presser that Sanford was deeply anguished and I actually felt some personal sympathy for him. However, it was also very apparent when taken with his disappearing act that this is a guy who is a bit unstable but who was being talked about as a serious presidential candidate. And at the end of the day he brought it upon himself. Sanford will soon be forgotten but what this incident does is reinforce a narrative that the GOP is a deeply hypocritical party. It’s hypocritical about matters of substance (creating huge deficits and then railing against them) and it’s hypocritical about social values. Sexual hanky panky isn’t unique to Republicans but generally speaking the Democrats who get caught haven’t spent years pontificating about family values, gay marriage, teenage sex, Clinton’s zipper problems, and Jesus. At the end of the day you have to separate the particular (Sanford’s peccadilloes….he looks as if he’d be much happier scramming off to Argentina btw and he probably should) from the general which is the perception of the GOP as the party of hypocrisy. Unfortunately David you want to have it both ways but this is how the game is played. If you live by the morality sword you must expect to die by it.
ModerateGal // Jun 25, 2009 at 6:48 am
Actually, I think comparing the two issues is apples and oranges. One is an invasion of citizens’ privacy actually done by our own government, and the other is the publication of private communications by a non-governmental agency that I don’t believe did the actual theft of the e-mails. I am curious as to where the e-mails came from. Who exactly obtained these messages and turned them over to the media? I think that action is actually a closer comparison to the surveillance program.Now, this doesn’t mean I condone the publications of the e-mails at all. I agree that the e-mails really aren’t any of our business, and they are mostly humiliating for Sanford’s wife.
Jewels // Jun 25, 2009 at 7:05 am
wait, the publication of the emails is ok because it wasn’t the government who read them? That makes no sense.
ModerateGal // Jun 25, 2009 at 7:35 am
Jewels, honey, it helps if you learn to read. I clearly wrote in my second paragraph that I did not condone the publication of the e-mails. Was that hard to understand?I also clearly wrote that I think that theft of my personal communications by the government is different than publication by a media outlet. Those are two entirely different things. Obtuse much?
BarbD // Jun 25, 2009 at 10:00 am
I’m with ModerateGal — I see a clear distinction between invasion of privacy practiced by the government and that practiced by private citizens. That said, I haven’t read (nor will I) the emails in question. I have been where the Sanfords are now in my (former) marriage, and I would not wish that kind of pain on any family.As with Sarah Palin, I have enough philosophical differences with Mark Sanford’s political beliefs to avoid the personal sniping entirely. I really dislike the personal attacks that have become a constant companion of the election cycle.
balconesfault // Jun 25, 2009 at 12:14 pm
Let’s face it – the media’s obsession with the personal lives of our politicians … and I’m going to say that includes the good (wow – Obama took his kids to an ice cream parlor!) and the bad (Sanford left his 4 kids on Fathers Day weekend to hang out with his mistress) … is ridiculously overdone. They’re human beings. Accept it. Guess what – our great founding fathers and some of our greatest generals had mistresses and kids out of wedlock and probably all kinds of other unsavory characteristics.At the end of the day, I say – the only politicians who I care are having affairs are the ones who attack other politicians for having affairs, or are public scolds over things I consider to be matters of family, and not civic, importance.But are we going to stop the media from running with every piece of crap that lands in their laps? Last I checked, the media have been attacked for not doing so in the past, from partisans wanting to allege that the media favors one side or the other too much. Seems the best we can do is just look away. I know I won’t be reading the letters.
balconesfault // Jun 25, 2009 at 12:36 pm
Although having heard Limbaugh use the term “state run media” a few hundred times too often, perhaps this (despite his seeming antipathy towards Rush) catchphrase has seeped into Frums consciousness and caused him to blur the lines between public institutions and private businesses invading our privacy?
krove // Jun 25, 2009 at 1:16 pm
Stanford should resign or be impeached.Not because he could not keep his zipper closed but for two reasons.First he is a grade one hypocrite. He pushed Clinton’s impeachment for a BJ and demanded he resign because he lied about it.Now he is caught in a bigger better lie and he wants to stay in office.Secondly he was derelict in his duty to the people of SC. He left for a 7 day romp with his mistress without telling anyone and without passing command to the Lt Governor. That is totally irresponsible and indefensible. He should go.