Republican politicians are at the point of becoming soap-opera caricatures, with South Carolina Gov. Mark “Foreign Affair” Sanford and Rep. Michelle “Investigate Congress for Traitors” Bachman of Minnesota leading the way.
A day after Sanford held a press conference in which he admitted to an extramarital affair with an Argentinian woman, explaining his near weeklong disappearance, he’s being bombarded with calls for his resignation. Many of those are coming from fellow Republicans.
But the unkindest cut of all comes from a financial-industry supporter — an out-of-state one at that.
Sanford donor Al Hill of Dallas-based AG Hill Partners, an investment firm, was having a letter drafted Thursday requesting that money given to the governor’s campaign be immediately returned. The company gave $3,500 for Sanford’s 2006 race.“And now we are asking that it be sent back,” said Joy Waller, an assistant to Hill. “Do you even have to ask why?”
Could it be because Sanford is damaged goods, and thus not likely to yield a good return on investment, Ms. Waller?
As if to provide comic relief from Sanford’s self-inflicted travails, Bachman held forth in a TV appearance, ragging on the object of her latest paranoid conspiracy fantasy: the U.S. Census Bureau. Yes, really.
So, here we have a U.S. representative, a lawmaker, setting the example of choosing which laws she and her family will abide by. This begs the question, what if we all were to do that?
Of course, Bachman is just following the example set by her fellow Republicans, ex-President George W. Bush, ex-Vice President Dick Cheney and ex-Attorney General Alberto Gonzales.
And why shouldn’t she? After all, they got away with it.
Almost makes me want to run for office so I can pick and choose. Then I realized I’m not my own DSM-IV category like the good woman from Minnesota.
Good call, RG. I’d say she’s definitely 301.x, clusters B and C, with some 290.3 thrown in. What worries me more is what her electorate’s story must be.
Eeeek! Eeeek! Bachmann is a freak! Someone should find her straitjacket, get her back into it, and keep her safe in some undisclosed location… as far away from the media as possible.
How can one listen to that and consider her anything but paranoid? Shame, shame, shame on FOX for stooping so low as to give her such a large forum. Surely they must only allow her such opportunities because they know it will get an extremist minority to become vocal and cause a stir.
Maybe she’s afraid that the government will start rounding up conservative Christians or some such thing, and put them in camps… heh… It wouldn’t surprise me if that’s the demographic she is angling toward with this commentary, that is, those who believe that is actually happening. Just Google “concentration camps for Christians” to check out some really, really loony stuff.
As for Sanford, I hate to see anyone have family problems like he and his family are having now. That’s the first thing I see when I look at him and Ensign and all the other GOP philanderers, is the sadness they create through their actions.
But as for how it affects their party, here the GOP governors were supposed to be what will save the party. Palin is generally viewed as a loose cannon who doesn’t know much about anything really, Bobby Jindal was disastrous in his response to Obama’s SOTU address, and now the conservative governor hero guy who said “I refuse to take any of Obama’s stimulus money” is a philanderer!
It couldn’t happen to a nicer political party, anyway. What’s coming up next? Revelations that Eric Cantor is gay? An extramarital affair for Mitch McConnell and/or Lindsey Graham, or even an affair between the two?
I’m actually beginning to believe that Republicans who demand such close scrutiny of specific groups and/or who rail against certain groups do so in many cases to hide the fact that they engage in the very activities they profess to abhor. For a long time I thought that was just an exaggeration used by the left, but in the last decade it really does seem like the GOP has the market cornered on having no moral values.
“Do as I say, not as I do” should be the new GOP motto.
The Dems ought to start a campaign promoting the left as the real bastion of “moral values”! That would be fun to see.
But about all the left has to do at this point is sit back and watch the GOP self-destruct.
I’d love to see her and Romney run together in 2012. We could call them Mitt and the Twit.
Snave, either Bachman is a paranoid personality case or she’s pitifully artless at playing the fear card for political gain. As for Fox, this kind of nonsense is their stock in trade.
I get what you’re saying about Dems stepping up as the more-moral party. It would be interesting, but I’m afraid that in no time some Democrat officeholder would turn up with his/her own scandal. Then the left would just come off as hypocritical.
JM, “Mitt and the twit,” LOL. I like it. At one point, the thought of Palin and Bachman running in 2012 crossed my mind, but the prospect is just too mind boggling.
This is too poetic — corporate manipulators demanding a refund from one of their prostitutes because the hooker isn’t performing satisfactorily.
Fox News a couple of weeks ago posted photos of “UFO’s” over London, witnessed by hundreds of people across London, like it was this astounding, groundbreaking, earth shattering news.
The lights in the camera phone looked like fireflies mating.
Fox is the Weekly World News.
Bachmann is Bat Boy.
Sanford is just a sad sack POS who needs to go to work selling toasters.
SW: Great googly, Bachmann and Palin…(deep breath, count to ten…)
Well, at least SNL would be funny again for awhile…:)
Bee, you’re much too charitable to Faux News. Otherwise, a great rundown.
Tom,
Yeah, three years later too! You’d think that’d expire after 90 days…