Extramarital shenanigans give U.S. politics a soap opera flourish
Published Friday July 3rd, 2009
WASHINGTON - Sordid stories that seem plucked from the afternoon soap operas have been dominating the U.S. political landscape in recent days as Capitol Hill legislators took a breather during their Fourth of July recess.
Front and centre for those who prefer real-life dirt to the fiction churned out by imaginative Hollywood scriptwriters has been the seamy tale of the lovesick South Carolina governor who is having trouble refraining from publicly mooning over his Argentine mistress.
"This was a whole lot more than a simple affair; this was a love story," said Mark Sanford, who also claims to be attempting to "fall back in love with" his wife. "A forbidden one, a tragic one, but a love story at the end of the day."
Many consider the Republican governor's emotional interview this week with The Associated Press to be the final nail in the coffin of a political career that was already edging towards collapse in the wake of his original bombshell confession.
"However it ends, let's not kid ourselves: Mark Sanford isn't remotely special," wrote the New Republic's Michelle Cottle, who ridiculed some of the sympathetic news coverage of the apparently heartbroken Sanford.
"He isn't even particularly tragic, at least not in the romantic sense. The man isn't a fool for love so much as he's just a fool. And his political future now largely depends on how gladly the voters of South Carolina will suffer having a fool as their leader."
The calls for Sanford's resignation by state legislators, in fact, have become almost deafening since the governor inexplicably decided to expand upon the story by discussing his heartache over his South American "soulmate."
Curiously, Sanford's wife, Jenny, put out a statement a day after the interview, once again saying she was prepared to forgive her husband and the father of their four boys.
"Forgiveness opens the door for Mark to begin to work privately, humbly and respectfully toward reconciliation with me," she said. "However, to achieve true reconciliation will take time, involve repentance, and will not be easy."
Another disgraced southern politician, one-time Democrat shining star John Edwards, was also back in the spotlight this week amid news that a book is currently in the works that will shed light on his own extra-marital activities.
Andrew Young, a former aide to the North Carolina presidential hopeful, says Edwards fathered a year-old baby with Rielle Hunter. Edwards, whose wife is dying of cancer, has admitted to an affair with Hunter but denied fathering the blue-eyed baby girl.
Young's tell-all will provide details about how and why he stepped in for Edwards to claim Hunter's baby was his.
If that's not sleazy enough, Young also recounts finding a sex tape of Hunter and Edwards, who was John Kerry's running mate in the 2004 presidential election. Young has signed a book deal with St. Martin's Press.
An upcoming book about Sarah Palin, who announced on Friday she's resigning as Alaska governor, will chronicle the tensions between her and officials in Republican John McCain's campaign for president last year.
Palin's surprise announcement is thought to be designed to clear the way for her own run for president in 2012, and if the Vanity Fair profile is any indication, it's sure to be a wild ride.
In the piece, writer Todd Purdum paints a picture of a stubborn woman who won't take direction and has transformed many former friends into foes.
He writes of onetime associates who believe Palin suffers from narcissistic personality disorder.
"How could John McCain, one of the cagiest survivors in contemporary politics - with a fine appreciation of life's injustices and absurdities, a love for the sweep of history, and an overdeveloped sense of his own integrity and honor - ever have picked a person whose utter shortage of qualification for her proposed job all but disqualified him for his?" Purdum writes.
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