Boy oh boy was Mark Sanford a collossal, self-absorbed ass

[shira]

Jenny Sanford's tell all, "Staying True" is now out, and a review by Ruth Marcus appeared in today's Washington Post. (Full disclosure: Ruth Marcus is mainly a columnist for the Post, and is very liberal.)

This thread is not intended to demonstrate that Republican politicians are bigger A-holes than Democrats. To avoid turning this thread into a pissing content about which political party has bigger pricks, I concede that both sides have plenty (and prickettes, too).

Honestly, when I read the review this morning I was just astonished that a bright, beautiful, rich woman could fall for a man who was obviously such a jerk. That's my motivation: bewilderment.

This thread could easily be placed in Love and Relationships, but it's also about a (formerly) major political figure, so I'm putting it here.

Here are the meatiest excerpts from the review:

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/02/04/AR2010020404377.html

Item 1: Mark and Jenny have barely started dating, and he invites her to spend New Year's weekend with him at Coosaw, his family's farm in South Carolina. Mark leaves her a car at the airport -- a stick-shift, which she doesn't know how to drive -- and lets Jenny make her way through the lowland fog. "Our brother can be such a piiig," Mark's sister Sarah tells her. Jenny doesn't pay enough attention: "I felt I had just passed some test with Mark, and not complaining about what I'd endured was part of it."

Item 2: Mark and Jenny are engaged, and Mark -- this is after sending her a phony pre-nuptial agreement; ha ha ha -- is reworking the ceremony. Turns out he doesn't want to include a promise to be faithful. RED ALERT! RED ALERT! AWOOGAH! AWOOGAH! "In retrospect," Jenny allows, "I suppose I might have seen this as a sign that Mark wasn't fully committed to me, and with the benefit of the knowledge I have about Mark now, I could point to this moment as a clear sign of things to come." Yah think? "At the time, though, I thought his honesty was brave and sweet. . . ."

Item 3: Mark and Jenny are newlyweds, and it is Jenny's birthday. He gives her a hand-drawn card -- with a picture of half a bicycle. For Christmas, another card -- with a picture of the other half. "Months later, he delivered the gift to me, a used purple bike he had purchased for $25!" Jenny's initial response, the right one, is "disbelief. . . . In time, however, I came to know this was just part of who he was."
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And that's not all. There is their first Thanksgiving together, four weeks into their marriage, when Mark and Jenny arrive at Coosaw, and he explains that she'll be sharing a bedroom with his sister: "I've always slept with my brothers and I don't see why that has to change now that we're married." There is the time, again during the first year of their marriage, that he refuses -- despite her tearful pleading -- to accompany Jenny to her grandfather's funeral. "I explained how it was something I needed. . . . But Mark held firm that he didn't need to go with me to the funeral."

Or -- my personal favorite -- the time he balked at accompanying pregnant Jenny to childbirth classes: "Mark joined me at one Lamaze class before deeming it a waste of his time since, as he explained, 'I've spent many long nights helping cows give birth and I know what to do when the baby gets stuck.' " As usual, Jenny manages to explain away her husband's boorishness: "Of course, many fathers still didn't attend births in those days." Those days? This was the 1990s, not the 1950s. When Mark leaves his 2-week-old baby to climb Mount Rainier with friends, "I didn't really see any reason for Mark not to go off and enjoy his adventure."

By the time Mark is in Congress, Jenny is reduced to instructing the scheduler to remind him of her birthday. And there is the touching moment when Mark has a friend pick out a diamond necklace for Jenny, has a staffer hide the present in her closet and faxes notes to Jenny and the boys cluing them in on where to search. A few weeks later, when Mark sees the necklace, he exclaims, "That is what I spent all that money on?! I hope you kept the box!' " Mark "returned the necklace the next day, thinking it was not worth the money he had spent," she writes. "I wouldn't have felt comfortable wearing it in his presence, so what was the point?"

 

[Bitek]

What a dick. Him and Blago are quite a pair

 

[JS80]

lol i am dying here

 

[fallout man]

giant douche puke,
likely closet homosexual--
stay cool GOP.

 

[CallMeJoe]

giant douche puke,
likely closet homosexual--
stay cool GOP.

I think you have Governor Sanford confused with Lieutenant Governor Bauer...


edit: also, as per the OP, sexual douchebaggery is neither political party's private bailiwick.

 

[Moonbeam]

If people hate themselves because of early childhood traumas that are deeply repressed, but to which people are drawn to repeat like a moth to a flame and for reasons that we died psychically there and know that beyond the trauma is our lost real life, then it would make sense that we are drawn to what will cause us to feel worthless but in such a way that it be vicarious and never really awaken the buried memories.

So those of us who feel rejected will spend our days maneuvering into situations where we will be rejected. The rejected have a radar for those who reject.

This need to be loved and inability to pick a loving partner is an example of opposites that resolve at a higher understanding that I frequently speak of.

 

[StageLeft]

What a dick. Him and Blago are quite a pair

yep

 

[Moonbeam]

Of course a similar result of self hate applies to the Governor. He had to prove his feelings that he is worthless are true. He manifested into reality his feelings of being a piece of shit.

 

[Lemon law]

But how easy it is to be confused. We can dump on Bill Clinton for accepting that freely offered blow job from Monica, but the real victim was only Hillary Clinton.

But when both Bill Clinton and Gov. Sanfort did a pretty decent job at overall governance, do we have our priorities straight?

Or we can cite Dick Cheney and GWB, both presumably sexually faithful to their wives, but when those two rascals directly and indirectly killed more people than Saddam Hussein, we almost have to go back to Hitler and Stalin to find a similar set of morally degenerate sociopaths. Nor should we forget that the bad governance of the GWB years totally destroyed our economy.

 

[SamurAchzar]

lol i am dying here

+1

Sounds like a perfectly good politician, though

 

[fallout man]

lol i am dying here

+1

Sounds like a perfectly good politician, though

You've been dead for so long, that you have no idea what living is like.

 

[lothar]

Wtf?

 

[Jaskalas]

What they both need is some self respect. No way a healthy person would tolerate that man.

 

[classy]

Oh for crying out loud. She is a woman who got cheated on, so do you think she would write a book about how wonderful a person he is. Give me a break. And one note, after 15 years of marriage, after all the things, some expensive stuff too, I have given my wife over the years her favorite things she still has is little love notes I wrote her. Its the handwritten gibberish she loved, not the watches (one a movado), not all the jewelery, not the just on a whim several hundred dollars shopping sprees, no, some weak goofy stuff I wrote. I feel bad for the lady because he did her dirty, but I don't know of any person, man or woman who got cheated on that had nice things to say about their spouse. So this is no different.

 

[Robor]

I think you have Governor Sanford confused with Lieutenant Governor Bauer...


edit: also, as per the OP, sexual douchebaggery is neither political party's private bailiwick.

Indeed :biggrin:

 

[kage69]

WOW.


Calling that "man" a douchebag is an insult to douchebags.


Yep, those are damn good family values I tells ya...

 

[dmcowen674]

Boy oh boy was Mark Sanford a collossal, self-absorbed ass

He sounds like 99.9% of the Republicans in here so he is a normal Republican

 

[silverpig]

Of course a similar result of self hate applies to the Governor. He had to prove his feelings that he is worthless are true. He manifested into reality his feelings of being a piece of shit.

LoL self-hate.

 

[Dari]

He may be a d-bag but I would never attend a pregnancy class with the mother of my child. I saw a woman deliver a child when I was young and I lost my appetite for a week. Disgusting. Let the doctors do what they're paid to do and send me the bill.

 

[Greenman]

He sounds like 99.9% of the Republicans in here so he is a normal Republican

Why on earth would you say something so stupid? Do you understand that when you pop off like that you marginalize yourself? We read that and think that you're a weirdo consumed with hate. Then when you do have something worth while to say, we tend to skip over it assuming it's more worthless drivel. Why not comment on the actual topic rather than take yet another cheap shot at those that disagree with you? Anger and insults are the refuge of the ignorant Dave, people that can't defend a position always resort to personal attacks. When you've reached the point that you can't communicate without denigrating another person or group of people, it's time to realize that you no longer have anything to say. You become trivial, an annoyance to those that interact with you and nothing more.

 

[CallMeJoe]

Why on earth would you say something so stupid? Do you understand that when you pop off like that you marginalize yourself? We read that and think that you're a weirdo consumed with hate. Then when you do have something worth while to say, we tend to skip over it assuming it's more worthless drivel. Why not comment on the actual topic rather than take yet another cheap shot at those that disagree with you? Anger and insults are the refuge of the ignorant Dave, people that can't defend a position always resort to personal attacks. When you've reached the point that you can't communicate without denigrating another person or group of people, it's time to realize that you no longer have anything to say. You become trivial, an annoyance to those that interact with you and nothing more.

You respond as if blind partisan hackery were something new for Dave...

Just McOwen being McOwen.

 

[JSt0rm]

She married for $ so what. Like she is the only one. I'm sure she dated some sweet loser at some point in her past and dropped him like its hot when she could score big time.

 

[CallMeJoe]

She married for $ so what. Like she is the only one. I'm sure she dated some sweet loser at some point in her past and dropped him like its hot when she could score big time.

You have that backwards; Jenny Sanford is big money. She bankrolled Mark Sanford's political campaigns.

 

[alchemize]

He may be a d-bag but I would never attend a pregnancy class with the mother of my child. I saw a woman deliver a child when I was young and I lost my appetite for a week. Disgusting. Let the doctors do what they're paid to do and send me the bill.

Oh that's a shocker.

 

[Greenman]

You respond as if blind partisan hackery were something new for Dave...

Just McOwen being McOwen.

I hear you, just thought I'd try.