{"id":8074,"date":"2009-06-24T14:18:32","date_gmt":"2009-06-24T21:18:32","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.amptoons.com\/blog\/?p=8074"},"modified":"2009-06-24T14:18:32","modified_gmt":"2009-06-24T21:18:32","slug":"fake-out-in-buenos-aires","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/amptoons.com\/blog\/?p=8074","title":{"rendered":"Fake Out in Buenos Aires"},"content":{"rendered":"

Wow. So, just for future reference, if you’re a politician with national electoral aspirations who is cheating on your spouse with an Argentine national, here’s how you don’t want to handle things<\/a>:<\/p>\n

    \n
  1. Drive your state-issued vehicle to an out-of-state airport without telling anyone.<\/li>\n
  2. Fly to Buenos Aires, turning off your cell phone so nobody can get in touch with you.<\/li>\n
  3. Force your staffers to blatantly make up possible places you could be, like, say, hiking on the Appalachian Trail.<\/li>\n
  4. Force your spouse — who you’re still married to, despite the affair that you’ve admitted to — to lie in order to cover for you. (Bonus points if your spouse, being angry over the whole cheating-on-you thing, gives transparently and intentionally weak and contradictory excuses, like saying you’re writing a novel while your staffers are saying you’re hiking.)<\/li>\n
  5. When you finally do get in touch with someone, don’t give them any information that will help them spin this.<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n

    I won’t cry for Mark Sanford. He’s a major-league douchebag who had to be sued to keep from throwing thousands of families off of unemployment. That he has no personal family values is of a piece with his not valuing the families in his state. His political career is effectively over now; I can’t imagine any scenario in which a guy who would flame out this spectacularly comes back from this. If he’s lucky, he manages to hold on to office without being thrown out — not because he had an affair, which should not be a firing offense, but because the events surrounding it are so bizarre and memorable.<\/p>\n

    Who does this benefit? Well, it helps the inexplicable candidacy of Haley Barbour for the presidency, clearing out a southerner who was in his way. It helps Tim Pawlenty, who was going to have to jockey with Sanford to get out of the second-tier of potential GOP candidates. It helps Jenny Sanford win her divorce case. And it helps the people of South Carolina, whose douchebag of a governor is no longer politically viable on the national stage. Without the presidency to shoot for, maybe Sanford will stop playing politics with the lives of the people of his state, and start worrying about doing the right thing.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

    Wow. So, just for future reference, if you’re a politician with national electoral aspirations who is cheating on your spouse with an Argentine national, here’s how you don’t want to handle things: Drive your state-issued vehicle to an out-of-state airport … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[27],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-8074","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-elections-and-politics"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/amptoons.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8074","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/amptoons.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/amptoons.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/amptoons.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/amptoons.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=8074"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/amptoons.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8074\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/amptoons.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=8074"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/amptoons.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=8074"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/amptoons.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=8074"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}