Last Updated on February 6, 2022
One of the most amusing things I hear from people who support Mark Sanford and want him to stay in office as South Carolina’s governor is the mention of former President Bill Clinton’s affair with Monica Lewinsky.
“He did that and he stayed in office,” they argue.  Many of these people, I’m quite sure, are diehard Republicans who were fighting tooth and nail to get Clinton out of office at the time.
Just like Sanford himself.
“I think it would be much better for the country and for him personally (to resign)… I come from the business side.  If you had a chairman or president in the business world facing these allegations, he’d be gone.”
Sanford was more referring to Clinton’s lying about the affair than the affair itself.  But Sanford was, at the very least, vague enough about his plans to allow for major confusion about where he was actually going, and left the country without letting top state officials know where he was going, or even that he was leaving the country.
One has to wonder how Sanford’s business model might respond to that kind of behavior.
Sanford was one who voted for impeachment against Clinton.  So why’s he still the governor?  Not that I dislike the man…he seems quite personable, very friendly.  But either he believes what he said or was playing politics.
If it’s the latter, it’s just another in a long line of political double standards.  Is it any wonder why people don’t trust government?
So I think Sanford needs to make a key decision:  either he needs to take the same steps he demanded Clinton take, and resign; or he needs to offer a public apology to the former president since he now understands what that situation feels like.