So now she’s going to pin it all on running for governor. Not what most people would call a wise bet. Anyway, here’s the news:

COLUMBIA, S.C. (AP) — State Rep. Nikki Haley has quit her $110,000-a-year job at a hospital foundation in South Carolina.

Lexington Medical Center board member Lyman Whitehead said Tuesday that Haley’s departure was announced at a board meeting last week.

Haley campaign spokesman Tim Pearson said he would have to speak with Haley before offering comment.

Lexington Medical spokeswoman Jennifer Wilson said Haley voluntarily left to run full time for governor and her last day was Friday….

A move like this really calls her judgment into question.

Sorry I’ve been light on posts today; I’ll make up for it tomorrow. My defense is that it was a really, really dull news day. Here’s your front, such as it is:

1. Goldman Officials Defend Actions in Faceoff With Senators — Yes, it’s that slow a news day. Very, very small, one-column lede. Although you might get some enjoyment from the fact that the WSJ headline was that Goldman defended themselves, and the NYT hed said the senators put them on defensive. FYI, NPR went more or less the same way as WSJ, as did the WashPost. Look, I’m trying to make this deadly dull story as much fun as I can.
2. Venezuela’s Chavez Tightens Grip On Judiciary — More shenanigans from this hemisphere’s favorite Maoist.
3. Greek bonds rated ‘junk’ by Standard & Poor’s — And world markets take a hit as a result.
4. Bernanke Urges Deficit-Cutting — I know, I know — more deadly dull money news. I’m sorry; this is what we have today. I’ll try to do something about it…
5. Do Boobs Cause Earthquakes? — See what I came up with for you? What? Hey, this is serious stuff. It has to do with the never-ending debate between science and faith. I think, in this case, the boobs are on the side of science.
6. Strict Abortion Measures Enacted in Oklahoma — Normally I would never, ever put some other state’s Kulturkampf — which has nothing to do with us — on our front. But all that seems to be happening locally (going by thestate.com) is a bunch of crime news, such as this and this and this, and Steve Spurrier playing golf. No, really. By the way, SC lawmakers couldn’t even get a quorum to do their own Kulturkampf deal on abortion. How lame is that?

Gina Smith was covering a debate over in the House about letting charter school kids do extracurricular activities, but nothing had happened on it, and frankly, that’s not much more interesting than any of the stuff above.

At breakfast this morning Brian DeRoy, who’s working for Joe Wilson, told me my little video clip of Jim Clyburn and Steny Hoyer doing the Electric Slide is getting a lot of play.

Sure enough, I see that Politico picked it up. So did something called the Washington Examiner. And Huffington Post mentioned it in passing. Not that any of them gave me credit, but who needs glory?

Meanwhile, poor NBC had to content itself with far inferior video, apparently from someone’s phone. Tsk-tsk. Sad.

So far, it’s been viewed 4,761 times on YouTube. That puts it, just barely, in my Top Ten most viewed videos ever. It’s no match for my short clip of John McCain calling Lindsey Graham a “little jerk,” which has been viewed 61,945 times. But that’s been up for almost three years (since May 16, 2007), while the Electric Slide clip went up late Friday night.

So it’s got possibilities. If only I had 3-D technology, “Avatar” would be in trouble now…

Your first report of the new week:

1. Cromartie pleads guilty — (The State) …to one count of tax evasion and two counts of structuring payments to avoid federal reporting requirements. He’ll be sentenced sometime this summer.
2. Oil Spill Now Covering More Than 1,800 Square Miles (The New York Times)– Meanwhile, ‘droids are sent to try to stop the bleeding.
3. Courtesy of Arizona, immigration moves higher on Obama’s agenda (The Washington Post) — And threatens the White House’s working relationship with our own Lindsey Graham.
4. In Lean Times, Police Cuts Spark Debate Over Safety (The Wall Street Journal) — A national problem with SC implications, given the way we’ve cut into public safety budgets on the state and local levels.
5. Workers Fear End Of Boeing’s C-17 Cargo Plane (NPR) — This story about worker anxiety in Southern California has relevance to us because of both our own Boeing connection, and the C-17s that fly out of Charleton AFB.
6. President Omar al-Bashir declared winner of Sudan Elections (BBC) — That would be the accused war criminal of Darfur, meaning that this election news is not terribly welcome among civilized folk.

Several years ago I was asked, as a local Catholic layman, to serve on Providence Hospital’s board. I declined, because as editorial page editor, I presided over the formation of opinion regarding some highly controversial issues involving local hospitals. It was tough enough taking the heat for siding with Providence on some Certificate of Need fights without the other local hospitals claiming we only did so because I was on that institution’s board. (They would have been confusing cause and effect, but it still would have been awkward.)

Now, I feel free to offer my services, and it looks like there’s a vacancy. Did you read the piece by my friend Kevin Hall very publicly resigning from, not the Providence board, but the Sisters of Charity Foundation board, claiming the Sisters of Charity (the order that owns and operates the hospital) had made a deal with pro-abortion forces on the federal health care bill? The piece ran a week ago today. It said, in part:

In a very public break with the church, Providence Hospital and the Sisters of Charity of St. Augustine have defied their bishops on fundamental issues of morality with respect to health care. Working in conjunction with the Catholic Health Association, a hospital trade organization, the sisters and Providence advocated for passage of the health care bill that President Obama recently signed into law. In doing so, they endorsed a bill that I and many others believe allows federal funds to be used for abortion, forcing Americans to pay for other people’s abortions even if they disagree morally. The law also lacks important conscience protections for health care workers that the bishops and many Catholic health care workers viewed as essential.

So while the bishops and millions of ordinary Catholics – Democrat and Republican alike – were working hard to promote reform that protected the poor and protected the unborn and protected the consciences of health care workers, Providence and the Sisters of Charity ended up supporting a bill endorsed by the likes of Planned Parenthood and the National Abortion Rights Action League. Such strange company should have been a clue to the sisters and Providence that their efforts were seriously misguided.

The sisters’ decision to publicly contradict their bishops will have significant consequences. By aligning themselves with pro-abortion groups in support of the bill, they provided both a deliberate public counter-message to the bishops and political cover to the Catholic members of the House who changed their vote to allow the bill’s passage. For instance, Sister Carol Keehan, president of the Catholic Health Association, claimed: “For us as Catholics it’s very hard to be pro-life when we don’t give many, many mothers who are pregnant care. Or we don’t give pediatric care and well baby care and sick baby care to children. We have nine million uninsured children in this country. That’s not pro-life.” Apparently, Sister Keehan’s pro-life commitment extends only to the uninsured, not to unborn children.

Not surprisingly, the nuns’ open defiance of the church and its unrelenting commitment to life was celebrated by pro-abortion groups. Cecile Richards, president of the Planned Parenthood Action Fund, praised those nuns who “most importantly broke with their bishops and the Vatican to announce their support for health care reform.” According to Planned Parenthood, this “brave and important move” by the sisters was a “huge victory for women’s reproductive health” because it significantly increases insurance coverage for “reproductive health care, including family planning.” In Planned Parenthood’s parlance, “reproductive health care” long has included aborting the lives of the unborn….

The day I read that, my first impulse was to immediately write a blog post saying… well, what my headline above says: If Kevin won’t serve on your board, I will. I had that reaction on the basis of several things. The first and foremost was my utter weariness with the unrelenting negativity from Republicans willing to say and do anything to prevent the recent health care legislation from getting any kind of a chance to work. (Yeah, I get it. You lost the argument, and that upsets you. Hey, I don’t like it much either, because it falls so pathetically far short of what we need. But at least I’m willing to give it a chance.) And Kevin, while he is a person for whom I have great respect intellectually as well as morally, is as much a Republican as he is a Catholic. You may recall that he was a leading candidate to become state GOP chairman before health problems caused him to bow out.

Another factor in my reaction was my immense respect for Sister Judith Ann Karam and the other sisters who run Providence. It is a respect of many years standing, and it is based in many things, starting with the fact that the Sisters created the state’s first open-heart surgery program back when that was NOT the major cash cow that it is for hospitals today, because they saw the need in South Carolina. It was a respect further burnished by the circumstances in which the Sisters created the foundation from which Kevin was resigning: It was created with the profits made from selling a half-share in Providence to the for-profit HCA. It’s devoted entirely to addressing social problems in South Carolina, such as the effects of fatherlessness among the state’s children. It raises no money, but operates on the capital that the Sisters originally invested. Then, when the Sisters decided that the HCA deal was a mistake, they bought back the share they had sold to that company. But to do so, they mortgaged their mother house in Ohio, rather than touch any of the Foundation money.

Add to that the fact that when it comes to trusting a position taken on health care, I’m far more likely to trust the judgment and real-world understanding of an entity that actually provides health care than I am a Republican Party activist, even one so intelligent and principled as my friend Kevin.

Finally, I was very concerned about the way Catholic involvement in the healthcare debate was reported everywhere I turned — not only in the MSM (which tends to caricature the Church and other institutions it doesn’t understand), but in the Catholic press: It created the impression that Catholic leadership cared very little for the issue of whether sick and hurt people in this country get the medical care they need, but only about how obscure codicils touching upon the eternal battle over abortion were worded. I found this distressing. I am as strongly opposed to abortion as anyone, but I see it within the context of caring about all people in need of Christian concern, born and unborn. To me, proportionally, it would have made far more sense for the main thrust of Catholic influence to be aimed at making sure the overall bill fit within Catholic social doctrine, while at the same time not compromising on the relatively smaller effect it would have on the abortion issue.

If the Sisters’ “sin” was to care about healthcare holistically, then more power to the Sisters.

But, knowing that Kevin is not a guy to go off half-cocked, I hesitated until I could find out more. Specifically, I wanted to know what Sister Judith Ann had to say. On Sunday, I obtained that from a Letter to the Editor, which I hope my friends at The State won’t mind if I reproduce in full:

Providence firm in protecting life

In response to Kevin Hall’s column on Monday, I would like to clarify several unfortunate misstatements about Providence Hospitals and the Sisters of Charity of St. Augustine regarding our support of the newly enacted health care reform law.

The Sisters of Charity of St. Augustine have remained steadfast in our commitment to Catholic and Christian values. In communion with the church, we have long championed health care reform that expands coverage while protecting life from the moment of conception to death. To say that we would support any legislation that would enable federal funds to be used for abortion is simply not true. Also, the legislation does contain important conscience protections for health care workers by protecting providers’ ability to adhere to Catholic ethical framework and values in the delivery of care.

Throughout the country, there is a debate regarding the interpretation of this new law. Through our own analysis, we strongly believe, and are in accord with the Catholic Health Association and other health care providers, that this law would not provide federal funding for abortions and includes many safeguards to ensure this does not happen. To be very clear, our hospitals and our health system will never support legislation that allows federal funds for abortion.

The Sisters of Charity Health System and Providence Hospitals have lived out our faith-based mission in South Carolina since 1938 by healing individuals, families and neighborhoods through our health care services and outreach into the community. We look forward to continuing our unwavering commitment of carrying forward the healing ministry of Jesus.

Sister Judith Ann Karam

President and CEO, Sisters of Charity Health System

Cleveland, Ohio

That’s sort of what I thought, Sister.

I’m going back to my original reaction: Whatever my friend Kevin chooses to do, I’ll be glad to serve on your board, Sisters, any time you want me.

In a slight new twist on his standard “damn the poor” rhetoric, Andre Bauer is now channeling Japanese chauvinists.

Remember back in the early 90s, when speaker of the Japanese House of Representatives Yoshio Sakurauchi blamed our trade deficit with his country on lazy American workers? (Leading our own Fritz Hollings to suggest U.S. workers “should draw a mushroom cloud and put under it: ‘Made in America by lazy and illiterate Americans and tested in Japan.'”)

Well, now Andre Bauer has brought it closer to home:

By JIM DAVENPORT – Associated Press Writer

SPARTANBURG, S.C. — South Carolina’s lieutenant governor said Friday that lazy residents who don’t want to take jobs harvesting the state’s crops are the root of its problems with illegal immigration.

Lt. Gov. Andre Bauer’s remarks came at the opening of a debate of Republican gubernatorial hopefuls. The candidates were asked about Arizona’s new tough illegal immigration law and whether South Carolina should do more to fight the problem.

“The real problem is the workforce,” Bauer said. State relief programs leave people unwilling to work the jobs in fields and orchards now filled with migrant workers, he said.

“The problem is we have a give-away system in this country and in this state that is so strong that people would rather sit home and do nothing than do these jobs. Laziness is not a disability,” Bauer said. “There are lot of people that are flat out lazy and they are using up the goods and services that we have in this state.”

To the credit of S.C. Republicans, Mr. Bauer came in last in the straw poll at the Silver Elephant Banquet Saturday night. I don’t know if there’s a connection there or not.

I do know that the AP’s Jim Davenport showed the above story to S.C. GOP Chair Karen Floyd on his laptop before the banquet, apparently hoping for a reaction, and she changed the subject.

Sitting at the back of the room at the Silver Elephant Dinner. I forgot my laptop’s power cord, and my ax won’t connect to the Wi-Fi here in the convention center. Other than that, things are going great.

I’m typing this on Wesley Donehue‘s machine while he runs around doing other stuff. Earl Capps is here, and has offered to let me use his if I get bumped from this one. Wes Wolfe has tried, without success, to help me solve the problem with my machine.

A very communitarian bunch, these bloggers.

I was sorry to see this today:

Sen. Lindsey O. Graham (R-S.C.) threatened to abandon his effort to push a climate and energy bill Saturday, saying he will only continue if Democratic leaders promise to relinquish plans to bring up immigration legislation first.

Graham’s departure, if he follows through on his ultimatum, would likely doom any chance of passing a climate bill this year. He is the sole Republican working with Sens. John Kerry (D-Mass.) and Joseph I. Lieberman (I-Conn.) on a compromise proposal which they had planned to unveil Monday.

Kerry and Lieberman will roll out their climate and energy plan Monday in spite of Graham’s absence, aides said.

In a letter to leaders of the effort to enact climate and energy legislation, Graham wrote, “I want to bring to your attention what appears to be a decision by the Obama Administration and Senate Democratic leadership to move immigration instead of energy. Unless their plan substantially changes this weekend, I will be unable to move forward on energy independence legislation at this time. I will not allow our hard work to be rolled out in a manner that has no chance of success.”

Since what Graham, Kerry and Lieberman have been working on is the closest thing I’ve seen to a real Energy Party solution, this would be a terrible shame.

The thing is, Graham has also been — at further political risk to himself — working on comprehensive immigration reform. I think it would behoove the majority to consider his counsel on this before chasing away someone who would be key to reaching agreements on both of these hot-button issues.

I’ll be looking to read more about what Graham’s concerns are. I’ll bet his reasoning is good. Given the way he gets beat up over both of these issues, I suspect he has thought it out far more carefully than has anyone in the majority.

Pub Politics Episode 2 from Wesley Donehue on Vimeo.

Here’s the high-res video from our discussion last night at the Flying Saucer with Wesley Donehue and Phil Bailey. The other guest along with me was Yvonne Wenger with the Charleston Post and Courier.

To give you a more detailed understanding of the conversation, I started out with a Stella Artois, then switched to the darker Gaelic-style beer from Asheville that Phil was drinking.

Someone asked on a previous post whether I was going to attend any of the political festivities this weekend. I plan to drop by the Clyburn fish fry today, and I’m going to sit at the bloggers’ table Wesley set up at the Silver Elephant Dinner tomorrow night.

Someone brought to my attention this Anderson Cooper interview with an Arizona legislator who supported a bill to require that anyone running for president on the ballot in Arizona produce a birth certificate to establish his bona fides.

What interested me about this is not yet another silly argument over the absurd things birthers believe. What interested me was the concept of being a political leader that Cooper was trying to impress upon this GOP lawmaker.

The lawmaker was saying that HE believes — sorta kinda — that President Obama is a U.S. citizen, born in Hawaii. But he maintains this is a good idea because a lot of people don’t believe it, and this would avoid controversy in the future.

Cooper’s point — his editorial point, more suited to an editorial board meeting than a news interview — is that if the lawmaker has constituents who don’t believe Obama’s a citizen and he knows he is, doesn’t he have an obligation to lead and tell the constituent that he’s wrong, rather than pander to him by passing legislation that tacitly acknowledges he may have a point?

I like this point because it’s one that too few politicians grasp today — that they are delegated to learn MORE about issues than their constituents have time or resources to learn, and to act accordingly. Instead, what we tend to get are weathervanes. And a weathervane elected representative is worse than useless; he’s actually harmful to our republic.

Here’s the latest e-mail update from Mayor Bob:

I wanted to give you an update on the budget and the City election. I have talked and met with Mayor-elect Steve Benjamin and newly elected Councilwoman Leona Plaugh. We will have an outstanding and smooth transition, and both will participate fully in all City Council deliberations immediately. Congratulations to Steve and Leona, and congratulations to Kirkman Finlay and Tony Mizzell for their excellent campaigns and years of dedicated service. I would also congratulate Steve Morrison for his race and lifetime of service to the City and State.

I am attaching the final March financials for expenses and an email from Bill Ellis. We are currently $5.7 million under expenses for this year’s budget. Business license collections are doing well, but all revenue will be monitored carefully. Additionally, Mike King Assistant City Manager for Public Safety reported to City Council that the proposed budget for the fire department, reflects full funding of all fire suppression and prevention responsibilities, to include fully restoring both Engine 8 and Engine 9 to service. The funding requested will provide for full staffing levels of firefighters. Staff eliminated unfilled administrative positions. As reported before, the budget includes an additional, through finding greater efficiencies, $500,000 for police overtime. We will also add 15 police officers this year primarily from stimulus funding.

I will continue to keep you posted on the City-until June 30^th at midnight!! Thanks!

All day, I’ve been meaning to get back to this….

Yesterday, I said the city cops were being dumb if they weren’t letting the Highway Patrol take over the Benjamin wreck investigation. Then I was happy to say that they weren’t dumb, because they did.

Then, this morning, I read that that’s wrong, that CPD is still in control of the investigation:

Meanwhile, questions continued to pop up Wednesday about why Columbia police were in charge of the probe involving their soon-to-be mayor. Benjamin said in a statement that he had asked for another law enforcement agency “to participate in the investigation to avoid the appearance of favoritism.”

But Police Department spokesman Lewis said Columbia remained in charge of the probe. Sid Gaulden, a Highway Patrol spokesman, initially said his agency was investigating, but later said he had been mistaken.

In a statement late Wednesday afternoon, Gaulden said the city asked for help from the Highway Patrol just before 7:40 a.m., and a trooper arrived at the accident scene at 8:10 a.m.

Once there, the trooper spoke with Benjamin, finding him unimpaired, Gaulden said. The trooper then sought to speak to the driver of the other vehicle, but the woman had already been taken to the hospital, the statement said.

And that’s dumb. Not because I think they’re doing anything wrong, or covering anything up. They’re just doing unnecessary harm to their own reputation, and that of the mayor-elect, by creating a situation in which their integrity can be called into question.

And that doesn’t help anybody.

Remember when I told you about Bill Day in Memphis, the cartoonist who was laid off (by The Commercial Appeal) the same week that Robert Ariail and I were?

And remember how Robert, after being laid off, became the first American to win a major international award for his cartoons?

Well, now Bill’s added further glory to our fraternity:

>>> Washington, D.C. – The Robert F. Kennedy Center for Justice and Human Rights has announced the winners of the 42nd Annual Robert F. Kennedy Journalism Awards in nine professional and two student categories. This year’s winning journalists covered diverse subjects including human trafficking, Latin America’s youngest migrants, Alzheimer’s disease, infant mortality, Navy abuses against gay sailors, Mexico’s grisly drug war, enduring poverty in Appalachia, and repression in Iran.
>>> The RFK Journalism Awards honor outstanding reporting on the issues that defined the life and work of Robert F. Kennedy: human rights, social justice, and the power of individual action in the United States and around the world.  The awards go to extraordinary examples of journalism that examine the causes, conditions, and remedies of injustice.  The winning entries were selected in several rounds by a panel of 60 volunteer judges, all media professionals.  The RFK Journalism Committee, which is composed of seven advisors, chose the grand prize winner from the first-place contenders in each category.
>>> The RFK Journalism Awards were established after Robert F. Kennedy’s death by journalists who covered his history-making presidential campaign in 1968.
>>> The Journalism Awards will be presented by Ethel Kennedy and Committee Chair Margaret Engel at a ceremony on Wednesday, May 26, 2010 at 6:00 PM at The George Washington University in Washington, D.C.
>>> “The exceptional news stories found in the hundreds of entries to the RFK Journalism Awards underscores the need for resources to keep serious journalism alive,” said Engel. “Most of the situations exposed in the entries would never have come to light without individual journalists and newsrooms taking the time and effort to dig deeply into these difficult and important subjects.”
>>>
>>> Cartoon Winner: Series of cartoons, Bill Day, United Feature Syndicate: Cartoonist Bill Day sheds light on the continuing problem of infant mortality in America, especially among minority populations.  His unusual special project creates clear and easily-readable cartoons, raising public awareness, partly through a grassroots movement that led to legislation and policy improvements.

That’s awesome. And very well-deserved.

I just booted Walter from the blog until he started acting a bit more civil, invoking my “civility policy.” He, quite reasonably, asked for a copy of said policy.

Since it’s something that has developed organically (and ultimately, frankly, depends on fiat on my part), I had to answer him this way:

Certainly, Walter. Although if you’re looking for rules that if you adhere to by the letter and still skate by, forget it. This is very much a “spirit of the law” thing.

And ultimately, it’s up to me to decide whether you’re making the grade, based on my bouncer role. Lots of leeway for me, not necessarily for you.

And here is the ultimate measurement: If I think you’re discouraging other people from participating, either by being hostile to them or being hostile to others so that a reasonably dignified person reading it thinks to himself “I’m not going to comment because I’ve got better things to do with my life than get abused like that,” then you’re gone.

And I’ll resist banning you. I’ll lean way over backward, and will probably have to be nagged into action by other participants. Sometimes you’ll see the nagging here; other times it will be by e-mail to me.

For elaboration, here are several links to previous discussions of civility. You’ll see that I’ve tried a lot of rules, and in the end just had to start relying on my own judgment, employing something like the “I know it when I see it” definition of obscenity:

https://bradwarthen.com/?p=1882

https://bradwarthen.com/?p=3417

https://bradwarthen.com/?p=1918

http://blogs.thestate.com/bradwarthensblog/2007/02/bartenders_had_.html

http://blogs.thestate.com/bradwarthensblog/2007/01/come_back_when_.html

Bottom line, it’s not a statutory system, or even constitutional. It’s precedent-based.

Oh, yeah, one more tip to keep in mind: I allow you a LOT more leeway if you use your real, full name. But even then, I have my limit.

And I generally take it comment by comment. But in some cases, I’ve banned people permanently.

Well, our governor did it again. He embarrassed us by making another “worst governors” list, which of course means we look to the world like the “worst electorate” for electing him twice.

Here’s the list put out by Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington:

• Gov. Haley Barbour (R-MS);
• Gov. Donald Carcieri (R-RI);
• Gov. Jim Gibbons (R-NV);
• Gov. Bobby Jindal (R-LA);
• Gov. David Paterson (D-NY);
• Gov. Sonny Perdue (R-GA);
• Gov. Rick Perry (R-TX);
• Gov. Bill Richardson (D-NM);
• Gov. Mike Rounds (R-SD);
• Gov. Mark Sanford (R-SC); and
• Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger (R-CA).

They said the list was “unranked,” but note that the one governor they chose to picture (see the screenshot above), to illustrate the concept of “worst governors,” was our own Mark Sanford.

The next thing you’ll note, is that there are only two Democrats on the list, and one of them only made it because, well… have you seen anyone who wanted it worse than David Paterson? He worked for this distinction.

So this list will do what such lists always do: Cause Democrats to nod in agreement, and Republicans to dismiss it. Or, some Republicans — those who still defend our governor. The overwhelming majority of Republican officeholders, who’ve actually had to deal with the guy, will nod privately in agreement.

Of course, one should never be fooled by righteous-sounding organization names, such as Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington. They can be, and often are, way Orwellian.

But for what it’s worth, here’s the group’s criteria for this dubious honor:

CREW’s Worst Governors report provides in-depth analyses of 11 elected officials who have pushed their states’ best interests aside in favor of their supporters, families, political parties and bank accounts.CREW today also launched the report’s website, www.WorstGovernors.org, which offers concise summaries of each governor’s offenses and links to their full profiles.

In compiling Worst Governors, CREW reviewed the job performances of all 50 U.S. governors before identifying the worst 11. Though ethics laws, campaign finance rules and financial disclosure regulations vary from state to state, CREW found these governors’ proclivities for corruption, cronyism and self-enrichment outweighed their competency, integrity and commitment to transparency…

Here’s CREW’s brief description of why they picked our guy:

Mark Sanford (R-SC) was elected governor of South Carolina in 2002 and was reelected in 2006. Under the state’s term limits law, he cannot run for reelection in 2010.Charges:

• Abused his office for his personal benefit and the benefit of his friends
• Violated campaign finance laws by failing to report in-kind contributions and improperly converting campaign funds for personal use
• Subordinated his responsibilities to his pursuit of an extramarital affair
• Endangered his state’s economy by threatening to refuse stimulus funds

And here’s the link to their full report on him.

No sooner do I say it should be so, than it is…

Whoa … (imagine that “whoa” in a Keanu Reeves voice) the power of this blog is truly awesome.

Adam Beam now reports:

Updated 2:22 p.m. The S.C. Highway Patrol is investigating Wednesday’s car crash involving Columbia mayor-elect Steve Benjamin and a hotel restaurant worker, who was hospitalized after the accident.

Benjamin’s automobile collided about 5:40 a.m. with a car driven by Columbia resident Deborah Rubens at the intersection of Gervais and Pickens streets.

Sid Gaulden, a spokesman for the highway patrol, said Columbia Police asked his agency to investigate.

Gaulden said he did not have details, but said such requests are often made to avoid questions about conflicts-of-interest.

“As of right now, it is still under investigation,” Gaulden said.

I feel much better now. And I take back what I said about the city cops being dumb, now that they’ve done the smart thing.

The intersection in question, as seen from the building where I work./Brad Warthen

I hear from eyewitnesses that it was a couple of hours before the scene of the accident in which Mayor-elect Benjamin was involved was cleared — not because it was such a mess, but because the authorities seemed to be taking their time.

They’d better, I thought. Whoever is to blame — the newly elected mayor (who WAS driving, we find), the private citizen in the other car, some other party — the cops had better be sure they can back up whatever conclusion they arrive at. Very sensitive.

Then, it began to dawn on me that is seems the Columbia Police Department is handling this on its own. (If anyone has seen an indication that they’ve brought in the highway patrol or some other outside agency, please let me know and I’ll correct this.)

That, it seems to me, is dumb. Not sleazy or crooked the way some (such as our own Walter would have it), but dumb. No matter what you do, you’ll be accused of doing it for the wrong motives by someone. Why on Earth not hand it off to someone who has no conflict? Why let yourself in for all that grief?

Yes, I realize the mayor is not the direct supervisor of anyone in the PD, that he is only one vote on the council, etc. But why risk the investigation being tainted by any hint of interest, however ill-founded?

Folks, I’m a big one for letting the duly appointed officials do their jobs. I always hate to see special prosecutors step in to investigate things rather than letting the dedicated career professionals in the Justice Department or FBI or SLED or whatever just do their jobs. But it’s also important to let the proper level, the least interested agency, do the job when that makes sense.

Here’s hoping the CPD has already handed it off by the time you read this. But Adam Beam’s latest update ends with, “The department continues to investigate the wreck, said Mike King, the city’s assistant city manager for public safety.”

To which I can only ask, why?

I don’t know any more than this.  Looks like it happened right next to my office downtown:

Columbia mayor-elect Steve Benjamin was in a car accident this morning at the intersection of Gervais and Pickens streets, according to his spokesman.

Michael Wukela said Benjamin was on his way to early-morning media interviews when the accident happened. Wukela said Benjamin is OK, that he is “cooperating fully with police and his primary concern right now is that the woman in the other car is OK.”

Wukela could not confirm if Benjamin was driving when the accident happened.

Columbia Police officers are on the scene and investigating, said Mike King, the city’s assistant city manager for public safety. King said there are reports of an injury, but he did not have details. Attempts to reach a police spokesman were unsuccessful.

I certainly hope everyone involved is all right. People who’ve been by the scene, such as Stewart Moore and Wesley Donehue, say it looked bad.

WIS had this additional information:

Benjamin’s spokesperson, Michael Wukela, confirmed that Benjamin was driving to early morning media interviews when he was involved in a wreck at Gervais St. and Pickens St. in downtown Columbia….

George Rice with Richland County EMS said the woman in the other car was transported to Palmetto Richland. At the time, she was in fair condition.

First of all, I DO know that Steve Benjamin got elected tonight, despite what you read on Twitter and Facebook. My Tweets were taking half an hour to post, and Facebook an hour or two, so people were going huh? over Tweets that made it seem I was still in suspense LONG after the results were certain. Which is embarrassing for a journalist. I had Wyeth Ruthven making fun of me, which isn’t good.

But I assure you, I knew what was happening, because I was in the thick of it. That was the problem — reception was lousy in the bowels of the Convention Center.

I was at the Finlay “victory” party in Five Points right after 7, when they thought they were going to win because they had won Rosewood, Dreher and Hand precincts. I left for the Benjamin HQ expecting to find dejection, but by the time I was there everything was breaking his way.

It was pretty awesome being in the room when Steve made his victory speech. I was right up front, and when I congratulated him, I got one of those regular-guy combination handshake-hugs — which was also embarrassing for a serious journalist, but I was happy for him. In fact, I was caught up enough in the moment to Tweet this, which DID actually post, during his speech:

This is awesome. I’m happy for Steve, for everybody in this room, and for Columbia…

And I meant it. It was a big moment. I mean, the man had tears coursing down his face as I sent that out. And if you didn’t get a contact high from being in that crowd, you’ve got ice water in your veins.

His speech was excellent. I’m going to try to upload the video tonight, but I can’t say “film at 11” because I know it will take MUCH longer than that for the video to upload to YouTube.

But the best part of all? Seeing the happy Democrats (James Smith, Anton Gunn, Boyd Summers, etc.) and Republicans (Rick Quinn, Butch Bowers, Kevin Hall — at least, I heard Kevin was there) together there, and hearing the chant, begun by the mayor-elect, of “ONE Columbia.”

Reminds me of that awesome night in that same building when the people chanted “Race Doesn’t Matter!” in celebrating the Obama victory in the SC primary…

Dogs and cats, living together -- Republican Rick Quinn and Democrat James Smith at the Benjamin victory party./Brad Warthen

You know that dream that everybody who’s ever been to college supposedly has — the one about it’s exam time, and you’ve never been to the class, and now you’re too embarrassed to ask anyone where to find it, and so forth?

Well, that’s not really the stuff of dreams to me. My first couple of years in college were almost that bad.

And today I lived it for real.

At lunchtime, I went by the Benjamin HQ. I’ve been to Benjamin HQ several times, starting when it first opened. It’s only a block from my office, which is convenient for me, and inconvenient for the Benjamin campaign, because it made it easier for me to pester them unmercifully until they bought an ad on my blog. By contrast, the Facebook and Twitter messages I kept sending to the Finlay campaign produced nothing.

But today being the big day, I said to myself, Doggone it, self, you can’t just keep going to Benjamin HQ and not even drop by Finlay HQ a single time before it’s over. Not that me dropping by is a big favor. I sense that some of the Morrison folks now wish I hadn’t ever found their HQ. (By the way, I learned last night that the Benjamin campaign took steps to secure all such information at their HQ — and I saw the closed door with the “Do Not Disturb” sign. But neglected to get a picture of it, dang it.)

Trouble is — I didn’t know where Finlay HQ was. This occurred to me as I was leaving Benjamin HQ, and I even went so far as to ask Benjamin’s campaign manager if he knew where it was. Which, needless to say, is highly irregular, but I figured he’d know. And, as in the dream, asking was embarrassing on a couple of levels. But no — he didn’t know (or at least, he wouldn’t tell me).

I Tweeted an expert from the MSM — the one reporter who I thought knew ALL the stuff that I didn’t know about this election — and he responded:

You know, I’m not sure. I think it would be either his house or his office at Doc’s

This floored me. As an editor for most of my career (a leech upon mankind, Burl would probably tell you), I’ve always depended upon reporters knowing stuff like that so that I didn’t have to. This was disorienting, particularly since this is a good reporter. This was like finding out the smartest student in your class didn’t know where the classroom was, either.

I looked on the Web page, and the only address was a P.O. Box. But there was a phone number, so I called it. The woman or girl who answered it said there would be no point in my coming to where she was, as she was the only one there. She gave me a number for Charlie Irick, who she said would know where Kirkman was.

So I’m going to call him right… now.

… Charlie told me where Kirkman was now, but said he might not be there by the time I got there. So I’m going to try to head him off at Pawley’s Front Porch, where his campaign is gathering after the polls close. (Meanwhile, for those who are interested, the Benjamin people are gathering at the Richland Room of the Convention Center.)

Whew. Looks like I might pass the course after all.