In South Carolina today, the buckle of the bible belt, they are saying that Mark Sanford isn't toast ... he's charcoal. It was at least possible that he could have been the next President of the United States and now his career is over. And as much as I may have sympathy for the man trying to come clean and repair his personal life, I have no sympathy for the governor at all.
Personally I think this is a perfect example of how we're electing only the wrong people. Even the best of our politicians is the most shallow and narcissistic members of our community. Even the best of them is without any of the qualities that I personally admire. They may be smart, or speak well, or have good ideas, but in the end they are reprehensible people.
I'm not saying that I'm superior to Sanford in some way because he made a mistake that I didn't. But I do think we need to realize that the fact that people like him keep ending up elected to high office is our problem, not theirs. the properties we look for in elected officials are apparently the wrong ones.
I stole a quote off the corner at NRO about the future of the Republican party. that quote read "Bring on the happily married mother of 5."
There are qualities of character that are more important than how intelligent someone sounds in an interview. I wish we would all start paying a little more attention to them.
2 comments:
At the risk of "preaching to the choir" - are you familiar with H.L. Mencken's Notes on Democracy? If I remember correctly he goes on a pretty good rant about the quality of individuals that get elected in a democracy. Good stuff!
I only steal my ideas from the best.
Seriously, I think one of the best arguments to support conservatism in priciple is the way issues like this keep coming up over and over again in practice.
That kind of repitition point to fundamental truth's about the human condition, so there is every reason to believe one could develop a philosphy to address those issues that is just as constant over time.
Only fools believe that a new idea is better simply by virtue of being new. Because in the end, there aren't really that many new ideas at all.
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