Tag: Mark Sanford

Forty Years and Counting.

“The cultural climate is far different today, besides. Now, roughly 75 percent of Americans support an end to Don’t Ask, and gay issues are no longer a third rail in American politics. Gay civil rights history is moving faster in the country, including on the once-theoretical front of same-sex marriage, than it is in Washington. If the country needs any Defense of Marriage Act at this point, it would be to defend heterosexual marriage from the right-wing ‘family values’ trinity of Sanford, Ensign and Vitter.”

The NYT’s Frank Rich reflects on the gay rights movement on the 40th anniversary of Stonewall. “No president possesses that magic wand, but Obama’s inaction on gay civil rights is striking. So is his utterly uncharacteristic inarticulateness…It’s a press cliche that ‘gay supporters’ are disappointed with Obama, but we should all be.“

Palmetto Low.

So, the big political story of the week: the strange disappearance and eventual mea culpa of my home state governor. As I said here, I try to avoid posting on sex scandals as much as possible — In a perfect world, all of this private behavior would be off the table for both parties. Still, regarding this imbroglio, my feeling about his press conference yesterday was very akin to Gary Kamiya’s at Salon: “[T]his was not another blow-dried, prefab confession. It was unscripted. It was so intimate it was almost unwatchable.“

Now, I disagree with Gov. Sanford quite a bit politically, obviously. I was impressed by his op-ed on Obama during the SC primary last year, but he lost a lot of goodwill with me with his grandstanding on stimulus funds a few months ago. Regardless, whatever the moral hypocrisy and dereliction of duty involved in this case, it’s just sad to see a guy so obviously lost in the wilderness of amour fou. For whatever reason, he didn’t have the usual politician’s armor on at all yesterday, and it was painful to watch somebody writhing on the horns of a dilemma of the heart so publicly. He screwed up, big time, and his behavior is indefensible on several levels. Still, I have to admit, I sorta feel for the guy. (And, while I think John Dickerson’s recent hectoring in Slate was a bit much — particularly since he usually revels in the manufactured controversies and studied glibness that characterize so much useless political coverage these days — to my mind nobody deserves the godawful nightmare of having one’s mash notes published for all to see. That’s just a special kind of Hell.)

The Palmetto Blooms at Last?

“I won’t be voting for Barack Obama for president…However, as the presidential campaign trail now makes its turn toward this state, and as South Carolinians make their final decisions on whom to vote for, it’s worth pausing to take notice of something important that the Obama candidacy means for our corner of America.” South Carolina’s GOP Governor Mark Sanford isn’t endorsing Barack Obama (he isn’t endorsing anyone), but he sure does seem to like him, and what his candidacy means for the Palmetto State. “Sen. Obama is not running for president on the basis of his race, and no one should cast their ballot for or against him on that basis. Nonetheless, what is happening in the initial success of his candidacy should not escape us. Within many of our own lifetimes, a man who looked like Barack Obama had a difficult time even using the public restrooms in our state. What is happening may well say a lot about America, and I do think as an early primary state we should earnestly shoulder our responsibility in determining how this part of history is ultimately written.”