This morning, The State wrote about how politicians were backing away from calling for Mark Sanford’s resignation.
But that was before he, for whatever bizarre reasons (I can’t imagine what possessed him), decided to give interviews in which he:
- Said he met with his inamorata five times, not three, in the past year.
- Said she is his “soul mate.
- Channeling a combination of Jimmy Carter and Bill Clinton, said he “crossed lines” with other women, but didn’t go all the way.
Well, that tears it, several GOP senators evidently decided at that point. They put out this release this evening:
SOUTH CAROLINA REPUBLICAN STATE SENATORS CALL ON
GOVERNOR MARK SANFORD TO RESIGNColumbia, SC – June 30, 2009 – South Carolina Senate Majority Leader Harvey Peeler, Senate Finance Chairman Hugh Leatherman, and four other Republican State Senators released the following statement today calling on Governor Mark Sanford to resign his position as Governor of South Carolina. Earlier today Republican State Senators Kevin Bryant (Anderson) and Larry Grooms (Berkeley) also called on Governor Sanford to resign.
“Crisis requires people in leadership positions to act decisively, with as much dispassionate wisdom and judgment as possible.
Governor Sanford has imposed a crisis upon our state. As members of the Senate, we have a duty to the people of South Carolina to do what is in their best interests.
We therefore have concluded that Governor Mark Sanford must resign his office. He has lost the trust of the people and the legislature to lead our state through historically difficult times.
South Carolina has one of the highest unemployment rates in the country. Tens of thousands of South Carolinians cannot find jobs.
Necessary budget cuts have weakened public education and other vital services.
We must have strong leadership from a Governor who is focused and trusted.
Governor Sanford is neither.
We did not reach this conclusion in haste and we did not base it on his personal failings, but events since his news conference have forced us to act.
The recent revelation that he used taxpayer money to visit Argentina demonstrates that our state crisis will not recede while he is in office.
His own Commerce Department acknowledges the Governor requested additional economic development meetings in Argentina while on a legitimate trade mission to South America.
The Governor, through his spokesmen, deceived the media and public about where he was and what he was doing for several days.
He abandoned his office and the people who elected him with a premeditated cover-up, launching a constitutional crisis that was dangerous and reckless.
These disclosures indicate a pattern of abuse of office. Most disturbing is our belief that the Governor only admitted to these transgressions after he was caught.
The Governor’s family crisis is private and tragic. But the crisis the Governor imposed by his abuse of office is the people’s business and must come to an end.
We can only put this crisis behind us if he does the honorable thing and resign immediately.
The bottom line is that the Governor’s private matters should remain private, but his deception and negligence make it impossible for us to trust him, and for him to govern in the future.”
Harvey S. Peeler
Majority Leader, South Carolina SenateHugh K. Leatherman
Chairman, Senate Finance CommitteePaul Campbell, Jr.
Senator, Berkeley CountyJohn M. “Jake” Knotts, Jr
Chairman, Invitation CommitteeLarry A. Martin
Chairman, Senate Rules CommitteeWilliam H. O’Dell
Senator, Abbeville County###
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I regret ever giving this man the benefit of the doubt after that first press conference.
Grapevine today at work said that there’s going to be a “resign rally” at the statehouse tomorrow.
You must be feeling pret-ty bad for your old knocks on Sanford, eh Brad?
But seriously…a SECOND needlessly embarrassing interview?!
Wow. Just…wow.
I don’t have the words, but perhaps someone can help me.
If you take the words “Tragic Hero” and subtract “Hero” what do you get?
(Aword other than “Sanford”.)
Apparently, SC Governot Mark Sanford (R) is following the Bill Clinton (D) role: “it depends on what the meaning of the word is is”. He admits that he had affairs with other women, but never had sex.
1. Maybe if he vacationed with his wife instead of the boys, he wouldn’t have to
“let steam out of the box” (!) in inappropriate ways.
2. The e-mailer to the Palmetto Family website quoted in the Support Jenny article was right: we don’t need to give him an audience to work out his spiritual issues. He needs to read Matthew 6:6 and go to his room. Yesterday. And stay there.
3. Another great letter: Gov. Fiscal Responsibility needs to stop spending his government salary to fund his personal and political redemption and step down.
4.Another great letter: Andre only broke man’s law, not God’s. My husband quipped: “Andre sped; Mark fled.”
5. And finally yet another great point in the Op-ed piece: Andre is nothing if not a great, hardworking salesman. We can use one of those.
Wow! That bunch said “people in leadership positions [must] act decisively, with as much dispassionate wisdom and judgment as possible”!!
Hokey smokes, Bulwinckle… As my ‘ol granny would say, “That’s the teapot calling the kettle black.”
Where have those legislators been over the last umpteen years? I sure haven’t seen any decisiveness, dispassionate (or even just regular) wisdom or judgment from any of those folks lately (ever?).
Give me a break… Vultures circling the road-kill of Sanford’s career is all I’m seein’ here.
An’ by the way: Jake Knotts is signin’ this tripe by bragging about bein’ the “Chairman or the Invitation Committee”!
Just what the heck is the “Invitation Committee”? Oh yea, he’s on the top of my list as a leader among men (OK, ok… among people… jeeze).
I can just see ’em now… “Well Senator, you know our senate page cotillion is next Saturday at Chuckie Cheeze. What about that Warthen character? You reckon we aught to send him an INVITATION?”
It’s amusin’ if nothing else.
2. The e-mailer to the Palmetto Family website quoted in the Support Jenny article was right: we don’t need to give him an audience to work out his spiritual issues. He needs to read Matthew 6:6 and go to his room. Yesterday. And stay there.
4.Another great letter: Andre only broke man’s law, not God’s. My husband quipped: “Andre sped; Mark fled.”
In all fairness, if “God’s law” is the standard you are using then most certainly Andre and every other leader fails and there is no one qualified to lead. In fact, if “God’s law” is your standard, then we’re all Mark Sanford in Argentina. And you can go to your room and read your bible passage and stay there. Yesterday.
Have to agree with Birch, there.
Where I’m at right now they call it Sharia Law. Maybe the cure is to stone the Argentine woman, Maria. The Governor could then divorce Jenny and send her back home to her father who could beat her for disgracing the family.
South Carolinian politics is all backroom deals and bribes, anyways, so we might as well take lessons on that too from folks here. In for a penny: In for a pound. I mean, if you’re gonna go Third World, you might as well go all the way!
This is all a great diversion from the reality that Governor Sanford was right about trying to control spending, not taking the federal deficit money to prop up wasteful expansion of state government, and if he did take, it using it to pay down state debt.
America is going to hell because of unbridled greed in control of the public treasury.
Gov. Sanford is trying to divert attention about being “right about” all these things?? Wow! What a humble guy!
Karen,
I didn’t say anything about Mark Sanford trying to divert attention, but you definitely have trouble paying attention and comprehending.
The fact is, the legislature spent SC into this “shortfall” of taxes not meeting their wild waste.
The fact is, the state didn’t need a dime of that borrowed money from Pelosi.
The fact is, very little of that money will create private sector jobs, and few of those will last beyond 2010.
A tax cut of $8 billion would have put money in the hands of private business and individuals, who would have spent it much more wisely on things of importance.
If Sanford would stop making bizarre statements and telling all about his love life we wouldn’t be ‘diverted’ by this circus.
I’m not diverted. Bart’s not diverted. Bill C is not diverted. Neither is Doug Ross.
The media is the one trying to divert attention from the malfeasance in the legislature and in Congress which is going to have far more effect on your life for the next 25 years than the weekly scandal or celebrity death.
Radicals in Washington have seized power and are responding to their mob chants for the destruction of the economy – housing, insurance, automobiles, banking, your medical care, and your retirement. The legislatures scramble and fight over the fiat money tossed from Air Force One onto their bankrupt states.
What will the legislature do next year? They don’t think that far.
What will you do when the lights go out, gas is $4.00 a gallon, and unemployment is 20%? You’d better have your own plan, because Hussein Obama and Bobby Harrell don’t have a plan to take care of you.