Sanford's Real Sin

June 25, 3:43 PMPolitical Buzz ExaminerRyan Witt

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Mark Sanford has taken a lot of grief recently for his mysterious disappearance and subsequent admission of an affair with woman from Argentina.  The facts of the story certainly lends itself to entertainment.  I am sure the media is loving the ratings that must come along with every story that reveals yet another exotic, erotic, and embarrassing detail for the ex-governor.  I expected Jon Stewart to do even more damage than he did last night when he said that Sanford was "just another politician with a conservative mind and liberal penis."

What is the real story here though?  Sanford was not the first and will not be the last to be caught up in a sexual scandal.  To err is human as Shakespeare said and politicians are certainly human.  Democrats certainly have no room to talk given the embarrassing details of the Monica Lewinsky affair, or the John Edwards affair, or...you get the point.  

The reason this story is more damning than the normal story is that it comes from Mark Sanford, a well known conservative and extoller of family values.  Sanford comes from a long line of politicians who attempt to gain political points by preaching about the need to return to "family values."  The problem for republicans is that the calling card of family values is now growing increasingly ineffective given the party leaders' failure to uphold such values themselves.

It is not that these values are a bad thing or that we should not try to live up to them.  Just because Sanford failed at his own moral standard of fidelity this does not mean fidelity should be forgotten.  I simply question the motive of politicians in preaching a return to family values every election.  What will they really do to promote family values?  What legislation can you really pass to make young people respect their elders or work harder?  What bill can be passed to make homosexuals change their sexual preferences?  What laws can really make families stay together?  Sanford and others like him would be more genuine I believe if they stuck to the issues which lend themselves to government influence rather than trying to score cheap points with family values.  At the very least they could spare themselves against the charge of hypocrisy when stories like this one break.