They’re learning exactly the wrong lesson from their latest fallen hero.
“I think there is somewhat of an identity crisis in the Republican Party,” said Tony Perkins, president of the Family Research Council, an evangelical group in Washington. “Are they going to be a party that attracts values voters, and are they going to be the party that lives by those values?”
And:
If you can’t honor your marriage vows, how can you expect voters to trust you to honor your damned oath of office?
And:
"This is a very disturbing trend that some of their leaders can’t abide by some of the values they as a party used to esteem, or should esteem," said David Woodard, a Republican consultant and political science professor at South Carolina’s Clemson University. He said the political fallout could be particularly severe in the South, the most important bastion of the shrinking GOP.
"As other Republicans come up for consideration, this is certainly one of the first things they’ll have to address," Woodard said. "Voters will be looking at their private lives much more than before."
Yeah, that’ll work.
Look, the "Republicans as Christian Champions of Family Values" thing has always been a bullshit marketing ploy. Reagan dumped his first wife and was a shitty father — thank God he delivered the country from that heathen Jimmy Carter. How many Traditional Family Values Champions who assailed Clinton during the 1990s have been exposed as frauds? And even when the GOP controlled all the levers of power in Washington, they didn’t ban abortion, they didn’t ban gay marriage, they didn’t ban gay abortions. And the Bush-Cheney years gave us Jack Abramoff, Larry Craig, Rudy Giuliani, Bill Bennett, Mark Foley, Ted Haggard and David Vitter.
If GOP activists really believe the best way for their party to move forward is to set some purity standard for their leaders and delve even deeper into their private lives, they’re setting themselves up for a lot more epic fail. The lesson they should have learned by now is what people do in their private lives is no one’s else’s damn business, and that means dropping the pretense and all the posing and finger-wagging and gay-bashing and telling the fundie busybodies hiding under all of our beds and rifling through our undie drawers and medical records to take a hike.
Clearly, that’s not gonna happen.
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answer. Not the MSM as they follow the rethug line without fail.
They are running out of acceptable “values-based” presidential candidates aren’t they?
Allen – Macaca’d
Palin – wardrobe malfunctions, probably too PWT for the southernists
Jindal – rhetorically challenged
Huntsman – exiled to China, too liberal anyway
Sanford – AWOL, doin’ the tango
Romney – rainy-day values-candidate
Thompson (either one) – ugblublub
Huckabee?
Jeb!?
They really need to figure out how to resurrect Helms.
it’s all jenny sanford’s fault. like haggard’s wife she wasn’t available and attractive. she tried to dispel those insinuations in her biblically referenced letter, but still …. in republicanese, “she should’ve tried harder”.
Obviously, the problem has been a lack of oversight and accountability. The next “Faith and Values Voters Debate” should be quite interesting.
You’re right, BT, when you said “they’re setting themselves up for a lot more epic fail.” But remember: these are folks who never do anything half way. The more EPIC, the better.
here’s what i’m not understanding. most of these guys seems to get caught when their affairs are in the past. Sanford got caught in mid-adultery. Sorta. Now, sounded yesterday like he was saying that was the last of maria? or was he? if so, why? his marriage is in the shitter. nobody would blame him for bangin’ a seniorita. would they? what’s the big deal there. to me, the HUGE deal is that this guy is chief executive of a state and just walked away from it, without telling anyone, for some pu**y. and now that he got it he’s saying “that’ll never happen no more” ??? jeez. friggin strange.
“Q: Candidate X, you are not married. Can you provide us with three opposite-sex references, so that we can assure ourselves that you are not a homosexual?”
This question may not be possible to answer, as their belief system requires chastity before marriage. They would only be able to prove they are not homosexual by acknowledging pre-marital sexual activity and vice versa. It’s a bit of a catch 22, really. ;-P
They’d have to find and require tests for the long-sought gay gene, but even that wouldn’t work – since their belief system insists that homosexuality is purely a matter of choice/psychological dysfunction.
Six days for a married man to say good-bye to his mistress? No way.
The general rule is that if it takes longer than 4 hours seek medical attention!
They’ve made cliff-diving a spectator sport.
Bill Clinton didn’t drop off the face of the earth for a week, neglecting his executive duties to have his affair, and Sanford was all about impeaching him.
This is not Jenny Stanford’s fault. This is the chicken’s coming home to roost. It is us, all the gays and lesbians who have trashed his marriage. WE lesbians secretly got Sanford to write those salacious emails in order for him to be publicly embarrassed. There are lots of lgbt folks who like to camp and hike so we obviously gave him the idea to lie like a rug to everyone in the state and country about his need for outside recreation. That may also explain his tan but it is also winter in Argentina. Maybe he went to the local gay tanning salon so he could match tan lines with Maria. Again another homosexual conspiracy. Good thing Prop 8 got passed in Calif, it certainly saved so many marriages, just not Sanford’s.
I think that hypocracy in the rethug party is deeply ingrained. They pay lip service to “family values” but it is all a ridiculous facade. John McShame’s candidacy and Rudy Gouly’s viability can only be seen as proof.
and maria is a plant by the democrats. yes.
that’s what I’m sayin. he went down there to get laid. which he did. good for him (if it was on his own $$). so why’s he gettin’ all weepy? ’cause he got caught? he musta known his marital situation wasn’t gonna stay secret. he could just say he’s separated and met a hot tamale.
so far fundies are being pretty caustic about their fallen Great White Hope. CBN called him a hypocrite and they had some Regents U government prof demand that he should resign. The SC Focus president said that there needs to be “accountability”… The wife gets good reviews for her statement.
i blame maria. yes i do. what kind of mother would do such a thing?
what kind of mother would do such a thing?
Before, or after the kids?
Helms always did think he was jeebus.
Well, then. It’s just as I suspected.
As I recall Bill had his affair right there in the oval oriface.
Well it is also something of a Catch-22 if some of the references are farm animals.
Mitt “dog on the car roof” Romney? Nah. He’s Mormon anyway. Values can only be held and appreciated by evangelical protestants.
y’know, there’s just only so much a daily application of tooth-glow can be expected to accomplish. i think the power of a dayglo leer is vastly overrated.
I don’t think Bill had an affair – more of a problem keeping it in his pants.
These rethugs with their Big Daddy complexes and personality disintegration and who are so hollow and shallow, they will never ever figure it out.
;)
They may try and elevate Gary Sinese. He’s perfect. He’s a blank slate that voters can project their images on, and as a talented actor, he can sell any rebublican bullshit they happen to come up with. Look how well Reagan did, and he was crap as an actor compared to Sinese.
I doubt the GOP’s “fam values” strategy is going to change any time soon. It hardly has to. Until any given politician gets caught with his hand in the cookie jar, the base uncritically believes any sanctimonious thing out of his (usually his) mouth and takes his moral purity as an article of undying faith. It doesn’t matter how many get caught; the basic lesson is never learned anyway. Sanford may be out of luck, but some other smiling huckster is waiting in the wings.
Key question still unasked of Mark Sanford: “Governor, when you left for Argentina this time, did you intend to return?”
Thanks BT. Good afternoon pups.
The question I want an answer to is this one: What would it take for a repiglican lawmaker to actually get thrown under the bus?
I suppose somebody will eventually think to check and see whether he bought a round trip ticket.
Romney’s dad was born in Mexico of polygamous parents who fled America to practice their religion free of interference from the “one-man-one-woman” types. I really don’t think the American Talibangelicals will ever warm up to him.
Have y’all seen TPM’s flowchart — interactive guide to republican sex scandals?
so…… define “affair”. NO. Please don’t.
Clearly you’re not referencing “do” or “soiree”.
Be that as it may, all of poo-bah society awaits your new-edition thesauritities.
No. No advance.
A Democratic majority with spines.
This has been another episode…
Interactive?!?! Kinda dodgy if you ask me.
See Sen Craig
whatever happened to al franken and the state of Minn.?
Republicans
Liberals need to be a little bit more vocal about why we are getting joy out of this affair.
It has nothing to do with human suffering.
A must read, and a very short article below.
http://progressnotcongress.org/?p=1939
I never understood why someone has to work so hard to become lost before they are allowed to have any hope of being saved.
Why is being redeemed so much more noble than just going through life trying to be nice and fair and humane because you think that’s a worthwhile way to live.
Gee. Isn’t that spelled out even right in the bible?
What HAPPENS to these people?
And Foley. Little boys would do it. Other rethug reasons for throwing their own under the bus: converting to Islam, quite possibly; criticizing Party Chairman LimpBark, definitey.
It’s not the sex that’s the sin, it’s going AWOL on the taxpayer dime. Unforgivable.
Either power corrupts or the corrupt seek power. Very possibly both.
Personally, I get satisfaction when the holier than thou get foisted on their own petard.
Pardon?
WHO’s “getting joy out of this affair”?!
Every time liberals start talking serious responsibility and progress, some nutso pox breaks out from the other side of the aisle?
Do they have these guys lined up on a plank or something??? It’s a dumb dumb dumb waste of time, resources, and opportunity for a better life for millions of people.
That. is. not. joy. Stunned incredulity, perhaps, but joy?!? Harumph!
Go dust under your own bed for a change.
always??????? My you’re a little poof of fresh air, aren’t you, sir.
don’t bother blowing out my candle for me.
Breaking per MSNBC = Sanford to hold news conference tomorrow at 10
Damn! Need to wake up early.
strangely, our country’s leading fundie ayatollahs aren’t focusing on the AWOL bit. They’re sex-obsessed and focusing on the sin of the infidility, the lying and sexual hypocrisy quite a bit more than they are on the AWOL on the public nickel part. As as saw with shrub, they have no problems with grossly negligent rulers. Just with the morally fallen ones.
As I said before, it is, by definition, impossible to reason with people who put their false gods before reason.
I have to wonder whether Iranian ayatollahs have mistresses in Paris.
Shorter Sanford: “Yup. I’m boned.”
zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz
.. but Maria is waiting patiently in beautiful Buenos Aires…
Possibly with a heavy object in hand. Did she get any advance warning before the American media descended on her? If not, Sanford’s relationship troubles may only be beginning.
Great news for the Republicans !
Unbelievable
http://crooksandliars.com/
This asshole has abrogated his oath of office, he took off for a week and left no one in charge! His two-faced behavior about values bothers me, but even more, his dereliction of duty should get him impeached. Period.
I agree totally…. Now did you feel the same way when Clinton did the same, if not worse? Or do you have a case of Selective Moral Outrage??
i’m assuming that’s not snark.
clinton’s affair didn’t bother, much less outrage me for three reasons:
1. he didn’t thump his bible and fling it in my general direction.
2. he didn’t go around talking about how gays destroy the institution of marriage.
3. he did not go incommunicado for a week without delegating his administrative responsibilities
When did Clinton abandon his responsibilities, without explanation and on the taxpayer’s dime, to go boink his long-distance mistress?
New Republic marching orders from Limbaugh:
Limpy blames Obama for Sanford.
It’s really the boinking that gets Republics in a lather.
OK, this is EPU now, but I notice that the woman in question in the Sanford affair has a Persian surname…
Not that it would matter to ME, but for a member of the party that played the Name Game with Obama’s middle name, this is the cherry on top of that hypocrisy pie.
Snort. One of the “good things” about having “old eyes” is that I occasionally misread stuff.
I though you said the GOP’s “farm values.” [This is response to someone’s comment about the romantic possibilities of farm animals.] [I do, however, think that’s rather mean to the farm animals.]
And BTW, with the “anonymous sending” of Safford’s e-mail messages to the press, how do you think the Repubs are feeling about that “naw, no problem with warrantless wiretapping & surveillance” thing-y they were so in love with just a few months ago?
LOL
I read “farm”, too. Was laughing so hard.
That’s 4 am Maui-time.
Those 2 pm pressers work just great. Please revert.
The Republicans’ urge to have the high moral ground would be so much more tolerable if they actually held it!
The thing with the self-professedly Righteous is that they make a distinction between My “conduct” and Your “abominations”. I had a chat with a decent, pleasant, schismatic Episcopal priest the other day. He was certainly not a bigot, but was, perhaps, a bit certain about the morality of acts that didn’t interest him. He was very reasonable. Yet he feels dead certain that he must split with his church over the sodomy and gomorahmy that it fails to condemn with a vigor that he could view as adequate.
As a long married Catholic whose quite old-fashioned mother-in-law once described as “positively Victorian”, I take relatively less interest in sodomy than I do in Mr. Sanford’s sin–it’s closer to home, if you know what I mean. So I asked the reverend gentleman about something I’d noticed in every Episcopal congregation I had joined over the years: the standard Episcopal family contains a decidedly prosperous-looking husband in his late 50s or mid 60s, a slim, pretty wife in her early 30s, and a couple of toddlers. At Christmas and Easter, they add a visiting 20-something son or daughter to the family circle. Was I mistaken in thinking that Our Lord explicitly condemns one and only one sexual sin in the Gospels, I asked? and that it isn’t sodomy or gomorahmy or any other ‘my?
He knew what I meant. But I’m afraid to say that I rubbed it in. Why do breakaway Episcopalians worry about minority sins, I asked, whether real or alleged, when they have a positive epidemic of Serial Adultery in their midst? And isn’t it true that the Episcopal Church was established to make Serial Adultery ecclesiastically kosher, despite the literal word of the Savior? So how can a man marrying a man or a woman marrying a woman be such a scandal that it justifies schism? Is it really worse than a man dumping a “starter wife” for a recreational upgrade? If the Episcopal Church is prepared to defer to individual conscience on divorce (rightly, I think), isn’t it also right to defer in the matter of homosexual marriages?
To be fair, the clergyman in question acknowledged my point about divorce and Episcopalianism, even if he wasn’t prepared to concede the rest of my point. But most so-called conservatives–including conservative Episcopalians and Catholics–just can’t see the parallel. They are too focused on conserving what is “theirs” by taking away what is someone else’s.