In (partial) defense of Sanford
It didn’t take long for someone to call South Carolina Gov. Mark Sanford (R) a hypocrite, and it’s no surprise that someone at DailyKos is leading the charge.
I remember reading an interesting piece in the Wall Street Journal’s opinion page a couple years back when David Vitter (R-LA) was caught on the phone list of the infamous DC Madam. Vitter, naturally, was skewered in the media and called a hypocrite. The same is now happening to Sanford, but only one is rightly deserved.
Sanford should certainly be publicly skewered for his affair– after all, he himself was quite critical of Clinton’s affair while he was serving in the House (and he was right in doing so).
However, Sanford is no hypocrite. As he said directly at his press conference, “What I did was wrong. Period.”
Going back to the discussion on Vitter at WSJ:
Hypocrisy does not mean saying one thing and doing the opposite. It means saying something that one does not believe. Let’s take the example of getting drunk. Let’s say that I believe that getting drunk is immoral. Does it make me a hypocrite if I get drunk? No, it makes me weak. I could believe that it is immoral but still not be able to resist the temptation to get drunk. It doesn’t make my belief any less true or my actions any worse.
Now let’s say that Larry Flynt doesn’t believe that getting drunk is immoral. What are his consequences of getting drunk? Your comment on his living up to his own low moral standards hits the nail on the head. Objectively, my getting drunk is no more or less immoral than Larry Flynt’s.
If Larry Flynt attacked me for getting drunk, that would be hypocrisy, because he doesn’t believe that getting drunk is immoral. It’s hypocrisy for him to say that it’s OK for him to get drunk but not OK for me to get drunk.
Sanford’s not a hypocrite– he’s weak, but we all are in one way or another. At least he’s owning up to what he did and trying to make amends for his wrongs.
I think we’ll find more calls of “hypocrisy” from the left now that Ensign and Sanford have both come out about their affairs. It’s pure intellectual dishonesty. What Sanford did was objectively and unquestionably wrong, but for the left to twist it and proselytize is what’s truly hypocritical about the situation.
User Comments
russ
June, 2009
“Sanford’s not a hypocrite.. At least he’s owning up to what he did and trying to make amends for his wrongs.”
That’s hilarious.
He campaigned on ” family values” and then left his wife and children on fathers day to visit his mistress in argentina… That’s not hypocritical?
He called for Clinton’s impeachment after he had an affair and was caught lying.
He called for Vitter’s resignation, and now he has cheated, lied about it, and was caught, and he hasn’t resigned. That’s not hypocritical?
He’s the anti-government wasteful spending champion. Supposedly he once carried 2 live pigs into their state assembly to prove a point about pork spending. He tried to refuse Federal aid. But all that time, he had spent tax payer money to pay for a prior trip to Argentina to visit his mistress. That’s not hypocritical?
As for the “At least he’s owning up to what he did and trying to make amends for his wrongs.” … he’s only owning up since he got caught by a good reporter.
And making amends? Jenny Sanford: “I asked my husband to leave two weeks ago,” “adding that she had specifically warned her husband not to g to Argentina last week when he announced he was taking some time off.”
“He was told in no uncertain terms not to see her,” she said. “… I was hoping he was doing some real soul searching somewhere and devastated to find out it was Argentina. It’s tragic.”
So when was he going to make amends with his family after the initial split because of his affair… after visiting his mistress again?
” but for the left to twist it and proselytize is what’s truly hypocritical about the situation.”
its not just the left, its coming from all sides:
romney, pawlenty, even fox news anchors.