When a man goes against his scruples and recklessly puts his family to shame he behaves rather bizarrely. Extra marital affairs drive men to the utmost shame one can imagine. Even King David of the Old Testament bible, a man after God's heart, went berserk following his affair with Bathsheba:
1 In the spring, at the time when kings go off to war, David sent Joab out with the king's men and the whole Israelite army. They destroyed the Ammonites and besieged Rabbah. But David remained in Jerusalem.
2 One evening David got up from his bed and walked around on the roof of the palace. From the roof he saw a woman bathing. The woman was very beautiful, 3 and David sent someone to find out about her. The man said, "Isn't this Bathsheba, the daughter of Eliam and the wife of Uriah the Hittite?" 4 Then David sent messengers to get her. She came to him, and he slept with her. (She had purified herself from her uncleanness.) Then she went back home. 5 The woman conceived and sent word to David, saying, "I am pregnant."
6 So David sent this word to Joab: "Send me Uriah the Hittite." And Joab sent him to David. 7 When Uriah came to him, David asked him how Joab was, how the soldiers were and how the war was going. 8 Then David said to Uriah, "Go down to your house and wash your feet." So Uriah left the palace, and a gift from the king was sent after him. 9 But Uriah slept at the entrance to the palace with all his master's servants and did not go down to his house.
10 When David was told, "Uriah did not go home," he asked him, "Haven't you just come from a distance? Why didn't you go home?"
11 Uriah said to David, "The ark and Israel and Judah are staying in tents, and my master Joab and my lord's men are camped in the open fields. How could I go to my house to eat and drink and lie with my wife? As surely as you live, I will not do such a thing!"
12 Then David said to him, "Stay here one more day, and tomorrow I will send you back." So Uriah remained in Jerusalem that day and the next. 13 At David's invitation, he ate and drank with him, and David made him drunk. But in the evening Uriah went out to sleep on his mat among his master's servants; he did not go home.
14 In the morning David wrote a letter to Joab and sent it with Uriah. 15 In it he wrote, "Put Uriah in the front line where the fighting is fiercest. Then withdraw from him so he will be struck down and die." (2 Samuel 11:1-15 NIV)
Later God sent a prophet by the name of Nathan to bring David to his senses. Here's the story:
1 The LORD sent Nathan to David. When he came to him, he said, "There were two men in a certain town, one rich and the other poor. 2 The rich man had a very large number of sheep and cattle, 3 but the poor man had nothing except one little ewe lamb he had bought. He raised it, and it grew up with him and his children. It shared his food, drank from his cup and even slept in his arms. It was like a daughter to him.
4 "Now a traveler came to the rich man, but the rich man refrained from taking one of his own sheep or cattle to prepare a meal for the traveler who had come to him. Instead, he took the ewe lamb that belonged to the poor man and prepared it for the one who had come to him."
5 David burned with anger against the man and said to Nathan, "As surely as the LORD lives, the man who did this deserves to die! 6 He must pay for that lamb four times over, because he did such a thing and had no pity."
7 Then Nathan said to David, "You are the man! This is what the LORD, the God of Israel, says: 'I anointed you king over Israel, and I delivered you from the hand of Saul. 8 I gave your master's house to you, and your master's wives into your arms. I gave you the house of Israel and Judah. And if all this had been too little, I would have given you even more. 9 Why did you despise the word of the LORD by doing what is evil in his eyes? You struck down Uriah the Hittite with the sword and took his wife to be your own. You killed him with the sword of the Ammonites. 10 Now, therefore, the sword will never depart from your house, because you despised me and took the wife of Uriah the Hittite to be your own.' (2 Samuel 12:1-10)
Mark Sanford now needs a Nathan to shake him up a bit. Each of us possesses the nature to do indescribable evils. Our forefathers, far from mindless Utopians, instinctively comprehended the natural proclivity toward hurtful behavior as reflected in their checks and balances. I for one, believe somewhere deep in Mark Sanford's soul exists a spark of light. He will, however, need the help of fellow friends to see it and bring it to the surface. If he's serious about principled leadership he will step down and find healing. And, I indeed think his peers will convince him to do so. If he remains Governor he may open himself up for more hypocrisy charges, and poor judgment. The nation needs to know that conservatives refuse to tolerate moral hypocrisy in any party.
South Carolina senate leaders offered substantial reasons for the Governor to resign. Those reason are cognitive more so than scrupulous. :
"He's lost the moral authority to lead our state so he needs to step down for the good of our state," said Sen. Larry Grooms, R-Bonneau, who said he called Sanford and asked for his resignation. Grooms has voted frequently in favor Sanford's ideas.
Senate Majority Leader Harvey Peeler, R-Gaffney, also said Sanford should resign.
"There's just no way he'll be able to continue as governor," said Peeler. "I'm really concerned about his mental well being. ... He changes his story, it seems like hourly. That's not a man who looks like he's focused."
LIBERALISM A HOUSE OF CARDS
Now that we no longer have George Bush to kick around (Dems are still trying but the attempt is dying on the vine) the public seems increasingly aware of liberalism's bankrupt political ideology. Bill Kristol claims that liberalism's rise the last four years represents an interlude from Reaganism instead of a liberal intonation:
If Kristol pegs the climate accurately, Republicans can use this opportunistic moment to spawn a continuance of the conservative revolution. They must, however, find a way to rally around leadership. At this point Republicans really do stand as the big tent party. Whereas Dems inherently intimidate and bully nonconformists into submission. Big tents house lots of opinions and lots of opinions can get a bit cacophonous.
Past political conservative leaders such as Newt Gingrich and the Gipper, keyed off of two natural human motivators. First of all they engendered a tremendous sense of pride and hope for the future by zealously appealing to our great national heritage. Both made us feel good about our spiritual ancestry. These men vicariously sounded forth our forefather's cry for liberty and appealed to our recent father's overwhelming destruction of fascism.
Second, both Gingrich and Gipper judiciously set forth major, yet limited fundamentals of conservatism. They steered us through the muddy waters of multifarious jots and tittles by shining a narrow, highly visible light of conservative's core. This also explains Sarah Palin's continued popularity among conservatives. She incarnates conservatism's basic principles. Where Gingrich philosophizes, Palin functionalizes. She makes conservatism work. I'm not endorsing Sarah Palin here, if indeed she needs a future endorsement. I'm simply illustrating a point about conservative values. And true conservative politics by nature chases away the moderate little foxes who threaten to destroy the vineyard.
Posted by jeffreymark at 11:04 AM in Commentary, Politics | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack (0)