From the right, a "bastard" and "disgrace".
From me, why should we care?
But Kathleen Parker actually read his love letters and sees "the kind of tragic, heart-swelling tale that storybook romances are made of."
She concludes:
..this much we know without admitting: If this really were a movie, we’d be pulling for the Argentine.Well I'm not afraid to admit it nor do I need to hide behind "but that is fiction". If asked, I'd recommend Sanford beg his wife for an amicable divorce and go live his love.
Ah, but that is fiction.
But Sanford doesn't know me and has no interest in my opinion. That makes his affair none of my business.
i usually get where you're coming from but on this i have to say that i just don't understand. i get that you think that, in a perfect world, we shouldn't care much about politicians' extramarital dalliances. but we don't live in a perfect world and, in the world we live in, we have to consider the implications of events such as these. for ensign, there is the issue of hypocrisy because he has been such a public moralizer about other people's (i.e. Democrats') affairs and how bad gay people/gay marriages are. There's also the serious allegations about his use of public and party funds to pay his mistress and hire her 19-year-old son as a "consultant". also, in the sanford case, we have the same issues of hypocrisy and the allegations about his use of public funds to visit his girlfriend.
ReplyDeletei ultimately think we'll just agree to disagree on this. although it's hard because i really don't understand your position.
They are failing to live up to their own standards, and that's hypocritical.
ReplyDeleteBut if you believe that their public moralizing was wrong, as I do, then you should refuse to engage in the same sort of public moralizing about them. Otherwise, you're being a hypocrite as well.
As for the gay issue, my position is that it is independent and has nothing to do with infidelity.
"But if you believe that their public moralizing was wrong, as I do, then you should refuse to engage in the same sort of public moralizing about them. Otherwise, you're being a hypocrite as well."
ReplyDeleteThis construct is flawed because I am not criticizing him for his adultery. I am specifically criticizing him for his hypocrisy. I frankly couldn't give a shit if a given politician enjoys getting peed on, or wearing diapers or shagging mistresses.
It absolutely doesn't pass the sniff test to say that someone who calls someone out for hypocrisy is somehow definitionally a hypocrite. The only way this would make me a hypocrite is if I specifically said that people who call out people for being hypocrites are hypocrites.
I hope you see the distinction.
There is subtext here. If all the left was doing is pointing out his hypocrisy, would his "steamy Latin extramarital affair" be getting this much play, and would you be filing it under "Stupidity" and "Schadenfreude"?
ReplyDeleteMaybe that's how it works for you. But I don't think hypocrites are stupid. Wrong or misguided, but not stupid.
And I don't take pleasure when public moralizers I disagree with are shown to be hypocrites. Rather, I use it to support my position that public moralizing is wrong.