2 posts tagged “extramarital affairs”

The other day I was having a conversation with someone and we were discussing whether or not it was likely that South Carolina Governor Mark Sanford would resign his office.   The other person -- a Republican -- took the attitude "why should he resign -- Bill Clinton didn't!"

Yes, both men strayed from the monogamous straight and narrow, but the difference is that Bill Clinton ran his job while doing so instead of going AWOL for a week like Sanford did.

I think he should resign, but it's not because he had an extramarital affair.   That is a private matter between him, his wife, and the other woman involved and I wouldn't give a flying fuck who he screws as long as he ran his job.

Rather, I think he should resign because the man disappeared without anyone, including the Lieutenant Governor, knowing where he'd really gone and was incommunicado for that week.  He wasn't running the job he'd been elected to do. That is the real scandal.

Thoughts?

The news is full of stories about the latest political "sex scandal" of the day. 

Yesterday, Nevada Republican Senator John Ensign publicly admitted to having an extramarital affair while legally separated from his wife.  His admission was accompanied by the usual insincere, crocodile tears statement:

"Last year I had an affair. I violated the vows of my marriage. It is the worst thing I have ever done in my life ," Ensign said.

Spare me the treacly fake remorse,  Even among many of those who are much less permissive about sexual matters than I am, having a relationship while legally separated isn't identical to having an extra-marital affair while in an ongoing intact marriage.   Though one is technically "still married" when separated and the law would consider it adultery, the de facto reality is that it has already been acknowledged that the marriage has broken down and that divorce is soon likely to occur.   To remain "faithful" to a broken marriage is merely to perpetuate a useless fiction. 

The man was separated.  Obviously, he's not going to be able to get any from his wife.  Is he expected to remain celibate while in marital limbo?   I think most people would agree with me that this is an unreasonable expectation in modern society.

As sex scandals usually go, this one is pretty tame.  He didn't solicit a partner in a men's room, like Larry Craig, nor did he run around on a sick wife, as did Newt Gingrich, John Edwards, and John McCain, nor did visit a sex worker, a la David Vitter.

But like Gingrich, Craig, and Vitter, he is guilty of rampant hypocrisy.  Like these men, he is a social conservative, who has made many judgmental statements about the decline of "traditional" marriage, and is a member of the Christian conservative group, Promise Keepers.

But hypocrisy is nothing new in Washington.

This latest sex brouhaha doesn't rate more than a loud yawn from me.