This came in this morning, just in time for me to use it in my Health & Happiness monologue at Rotary today:
S.C. Attorney General Henry McMaster has cleared Gov. Mark Sanford of any criminal conduct for two trips to South America to meet his Argentine lover and, also, his use of state aircraft, upgraded airfare and campaign money.
The Attorney General’s office conducted a five-month investigation of Sanford, which included new interviews Sanford’s staff, Commerce Department officials, a Department of Natural Resources pilot and an attorney with the Republican Governors Association. The investigation followed a S.C. State Ethics Commission probe that resulted in 37 civil charges against the govenor….
McMaster, a Republican candidate for governor, said the “evidence does not support, beyond a reasonable doubt, that the governor knowingly, willfully and intentionally set out to break state law.
This is not to say, of course, that the evidence doesn’t support the face that the governor “knowingly, willfully and intentionally set out to” do other stuff.
My favorite quote from Henry in this piece of news:
“The time has come for our state to put this controversy behind us and move on.”
Yup. If you’re a Republican who wants to be elected governor this year, you would wish that — most fervently.
But the prize-winner, the real cake-taker in this piece is this quote from a written statement by the gov:
While I’ve acknowledged repeatedly my own moral failing in this matter, we feel confirmed in our consistent belief that this Administration has always been a stalwart defender of the taxpayer.
That may mean nothing to me, but it taps on that same little sore spot that’s been irritated in my mind for far too long by this guy: The non-apology apology. He travels the state, doing it over and over. And it always goes something like this: I’m sorry for what I did, and I ask you to forgive me, but I didn’t do anything wrong. Or, I did something wrong, but that shouldn’t have any impact on the relationship between you and me as your public servant, because I apologized, and so you’re obliged to forgive me — and if you don’t, you have some sort of nefarious political agenda.
Maybe you can’t hear it. But I do, every time.
The masterful thing about this latest iteration is that this time he goes, I did bad but I’m the hero of the taxpayer, so yay, me. You should applaud.
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I’d be delighted to explain to him, that I’m definitely a taxpayer, and he isn’t my hero.
How does flying first class to see your mistress, under cover of an impossible “trade mission,” while making your employees write on both sides of a post-it note, protect the taxpayer? Such protection, we can do without!