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Margo Howard | 07/01/2009 8:25 am

Whatever Happened to Discretion?

Margo Howard unleashes on disgraced governor Mark Sanford — and goes into ‘Dear Margo’ mode to provide the South Carolina politician with some advice.
Margo Howard

Editor’s Note: A longtime journalist, Margo Howard went into the family business (her mother was the fabled Ann Landers) in the 1990s as Dear Prudence. Her broad experience and understanding of human nature provide answers for the troubled — and entertainment for everyone else. Margo’s advice column, Dear Margo, appears twice a week — on Thursdays and Fridays — on wowOwow.com.

What’s up with Gov. Mark Sanford? I cannot remember another public confession so loaded with detail. It’s as though he were a "sinner" looking for forgiveness, and we are Oprah. Sanford is making John Edwards’s stonewalling look positively admirable. (You know … it was only one night and the baby isn’t his.)

I heard a reporter from South Carolina saying on NPR that the governor apparently “wanted to talk." I’ll say. We learned the Argentinean bombshell was his "soul mate," that he "had crossed the line before" — but "not the sex line" — on trips out of  the country to unwind with the boys. He went public with this tidbit: "This was a whole lot more than a simple affair. This was a love story."

However … let’s hear it for the little woman. Three cheers for Jenny Sanford who threw him out. How refreshing to see a political wife act like a woman instead of some humiliated helpmate who is often trying to save a political career. No Silda or Hillary she, in effect saying to the public: "If I don’t care, why should you?"

I am trying really hard not to entertain feelings of schadenfreude about love-struck dude being yet another one in a long conga line of Republican moralists who are caught with, well, their pants down. I am frankly embarrassed for the guy. How much more dignified to have sought out a therapist if he had the need to spill? In one of his confessionals he said he had blown up his career, his marriage and the lives of his children. So: what next? Putting on my advice columnist hat I would recommend that he move to Argentina to be with Chapur and become a gaucho, or something. And also that he sit down and shut up.

513 Reader Comments (so far…) Sign In or Register to comment

Lady Gator
Marjorie — in another couple of weeks this story on Sanford will be in the bottom of the birdcage along with all the stories of Michael Jackson!
By Lady Gator on 07/02/2009 2:30 pm
R.J.B. Reed

The difference is that the Democrats don’t run on a platform of family values.  If a person is running on the idea that marriage is sacred, and then he (or she) turns around and is having an affair, then he is a hypocrite.  If a person is running on the platform that gays don’t deserve to have the same rights as other citizens, and then he goes around sleeping with men, he’s a hypocrite.  Certainly the whole Clinton thing (which I thought the Republicans had gotten over.  Seriously, any time Bush was criticized in his first term it was like, "But … but … Clinton got a blow job!!") was pretty low.  However, I can’t help but noticing that many of the Republicans who filled our airwaves ranting about family values have since committed affairs or divorced their spouses.

Essentially, I’m saying if you’re going to talk the talk, you’d better walk the walk.  Or in the words of Jon Stewart, "Why do so many people with conservative brains have liberal pensises?"

By R.J.B. Reed on 07/01/2009 10:04 pm
Terri D
OK, ladies…husband has affair, gets publicly outed, spills details of affair, & instead of quietly going away says he is trying to fall in love with the wife again but the mistress is his soul mate. Hmmm~makes you warm & fuzzy all over, doesn’t it? What a catch! I do believe some marriages can survive an affair but this would be beyond my forgiveness. Jenny, you’re handling this with as much dignity as one could, under the circumstances. Your sons are just about grown. Frankly, I wouldn’t want this guy around as the main male influence for them. Please…kick this idiot to the curb. And Sanford, SHUT THE HELL UP!!
By Terri D on 07/01/2009 8:50 am
DeBúrca obj
I know! He keeps talking about it… how many times they kissed, how many times they slept together, even how many times he crossed the line with other women! Not only is it sickening and creepy, it makes you wonder if he isn’t a bit nuts on top of being a hypocrite. 
By DeBúrca obj on 07/01/2009 9:07 am
Terri D
I really need to take a shower everytime he opens his mouth! Please Sanford, show your family some respect & keep the details to yourself. I don’t want to know all your moves on your "soul mate".
By Terri D on 07/01/2009 11:40 am
DeBúrca obj
I always cringe when I hear a middle aged man talk about his ‘soul mate’, it’s so midlife crisis! He’s really rubbing his family’s nose in it, isn’t he? Along with the rest of us, ICK, enough already!
By DeBúrca obj on 07/01/2009 12:05 pm
Barbara
I think the story goes: husband is morally outraged at democratic morals, holds up the republican party as the party of "values", THEN, husband has affair, gets publicly outed, etc.  The first part of it is what has a lot of people riled up.  The party that wanted to hold themselves up as having better values than everyone else is now caught with numerous sets of pants down.
By Barbara on 07/01/2009 12:06 pm
Terri D
Could be, Barbara. But for me, it doesn’t matter to me anymore what party the outed one is in. Whichever side of the fence he’s on he should be half-way human & for once stop thinking with his lower brain and do the decent thing. SHUT UP!! 
By Terri D on 07/01/2009 3:38 pm
Patty E

What used to be called ‘Midlife Crisis’, and now is being referred to as the story of David in the Bible…..is really way more than I need or want to know about….

Maureen Dowd has some good advice in yesterdays opinion column—-maybe Sanford should read it as he travels through his emotions and throws them out at all of us, hoping to discover  ‘the answer’……

What is intriguing to me…is that the Republican moralists have seemed to gather round him as consolers, instead of insisting that he is in over his head, or has crossed a line, and SHOULD take time off from his office, FOREVER!  What is also curious to me, is that the Dems are not mimicking the Republican ’modus operandi’ of attack, destroy, and slander the man……

Is it that Dems are more in touch with reality?  Or are they less ‘moral’? and therefore ‘understand’?  Or could it be that the Dems are adult enough to ‘rise above’  the pettiness that is used as a substitute, by the GOP, for competence? 

By Patty E on 07/01/2009 8:52 am
Lin Cercone
Dear Mark: How noble of you to want to "try" to fall back in love with your wife. I wish you success. But I wish your wife MORE success if she decides to "try" to castrate you.
By Lin Cercone on 07/01/2009 8:54 am
Lena B
LOL!! Whew, I just love the graphic responses!!
By Lena B on 07/01/2009 4:43 pm
Lin Cercone
IF love is a verb - (action) why shouldn’t pay-back be?  I’m a firm believer in "Don’t get angry - get even.  We need to start a "deal breaker" blog.  What are your "deal breakers"?
By Lin Cercone on 07/01/2009 5:41 pm
Lena B
I feel you Sister!  You know I’m looking at that last name Cercone.  And yes I do feel you on that.  My deal breakers are, " I love my mistress". Or "You should go to the doctor, I have an STD". Or "I think my mistress is pregnant".  I don’t snub those women who stay and cover their pain, they have their reasons.  I know that my intense emotions could not handle the strain of competing with another woman.  I can’t let someone pull me to those depths, it’s dangerous.
By Lena B on 07/01/2009 9:32 pm
deber B

It’s simply not a democratic republican issue.   His is a personal issue.  No party is more moral than the other when it comes to "affairs of the heart."   To suggest that democrats are adult enough to "rise above" well, all I can say is you might want to go back and reexamine Bill Clinton, Jack Kennedy, John Edwards and the like to see how well your theory is working for you that democrats uh…."take the high road."

 

By deber B on 07/01/2009 8:56 am
F P
Disagree Deber:  it is a political issue considering the laws of So. Carolina he broke and the amount of lying he did. He’s a scumbag just like the rest.
By F P on 07/01/2009 9:02 am