| You know what I hate about blogging sometimes? People here, on Twitter, on Facebook either get a kick out of or annoyed enough by my schtick to fire back. I put up bad jokes, sexual innuendo or pure snark, and I'm an attention-getting machine. But I write what I think is a pretty thoughtful piece offering an actual policy solution, and it generates next to zero comments. So here's Mark Sanford and sex piece that just might spark a bit of conversation. Yesterday, I announced with my usual bluster that I wasn't going to be one of those people suddenly offering up sympathy and prayers for Mark Sanford. I lied. OK, I'm still not going to pray for him - I have enough of my own crap to burden God with to go wasting his ear on some other poor sap. But I'd sure like to buy the old boy a beer right now. Because I read his damn emails. Yesterday, I was like everybody else when I saw those excerpts on The State website. I was yukking it up and thinking, "Jeez, what a freakin' idiot." But when I read the whole series this morning - and you leering jerks know that was the first damn thing you turned to in today's paper, too - I started feeling bad for the guy. (Yeah, it's some sappy crap, but what love letter isn't it? Cokie Roberts was on GMA this morning saying even Shakespeare's love sonnets weren't great, and she's right.) This isn't David Vitter or Eliot Spitzer looking for NSA action. This is a poor guy in love, even though he knows it's wrong and it makes him doubt everything he ever thought he knew about himself. Selfish? Yeah, but anybody who thinks romantic love makes you less self-centered instead of more so ain't really been there. You ever been in love with someone you shouldn't be? I have, and it sucks. I was once so lovesick over a girl in college who was both my best friend and the girl of another close friend that I couldn't sleep at night. And I was 21 without a wife, a child or a career in site, much less a 49-year-old man with larger than life responsibilities and an outside shot at the most powerful job in the world. You know what country music the Undone Gov was listening to in the cab of that tractor? I bet you dollars to donuts he was playing "Ring of Fire" and the greatest hits of Conway Twitty until his ears bled. (Note to women - if you find Conway Twitty on your guy's iPod, seek counseling and/or a divorce attorney immediately). Listen, ironically enough, people who quote the Bible to an illicit lover aren't hypocrites. They are both sincere in their religious beliefs and still devoted to their wives. This dude was trying to do right, man, and he screwed up despite his best efforts. Love aside, what guy hasn't sat there in his cube or busted his butt all day on some hot job site and dreamed about chucking it all to head south? Anybody who's ever listened to a Jimmy Buffett song has pictured himself sitting in some steamy bar with a mojita in one hand and a cigarillo in the other. He's got three days worth of stubble and a beat up straw hat, and some dark-eyed beauty treating him like he's Humphrey By God Bogart has her arms draped over his shoulders. (Yeah, my wife's gonna kick my ass when she reads that, but Lord knows she's wished more than once that she'd pursued her fantasy of being an independent mother with one child, practicing law in Chicago.) Does any of this excuse Mark Sanford from blowing off the people of South Carolina for six days and screwing over his wife and children? Heck no, and I think he ought to resign. But I hope the poor guy gets his wife and family - and his self esteem - back. |
