Okay. Forget the affair. It’s a distraction along the midway on the way to the main tent. As I once heard someone from Europe put it: America has an eighth grade mentality when it comes to sex. So let’s face it, the affair isn’t the point.

Here you’ve got a guy who is responsible for the day-to-day workings of the State of South Carolina. A guy who was elected by the people of that State presumably because he seemed to have the leadership qualities and poise under pressure that is required of a Governor. So what happens? Finding himself under a huge amount of pressure–which is the consensus test of a true leader–Mark Sanford goes AWOL. No instructions to staff. No means of contacting him should an emergency arise. Nothing. He just blows the pop stand.

No, this has nothing to do with sex at all. It does have to do with character, and on that score the Governor comes up really short and with more than a hint of emotional instability thrown in for good measure. Not the kind of guy I want watching my back when the chips are seriously down and the pressure is high enough to crush your insides.

Definitely not the kind of guy I want answering the cliched 3 a.m. phone call. I mean, what’s he going to do when Lil’ Kim Jon-il decides to launch a missle toward Hawaii? Secretly jet off to Argentina and spend a few days crying in a hotel room until he figures out what to do?

So, heres the deal: Mark Sanford doesn’t deserve the title “Governor”, and he doesn’t deserve his job. He has a character as thin as parchment and as weak as twice-cut whiskey. He didn’t just exercise bad judgment. He exercised NO judgment. It doesn’t matter if he makes up with his wife and they play house together again.

Don’t want to know. Don’t care.

Mark Sanford has no character. He has no sense of duty, or honor. So, let’s stop talking about the affair, let’s try to move our minds out of the eighth grade for just a minute or two, and start talking about character and honor and duty, and why Mark Sanford needs to resign

© 2009, Mac Williams. All rights reserved.

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