Someday we'll walk in the sun

Home Sick and Live Blogging Mark Sanford:

2:25. I'm sitting here shocked - not - as I watch Governor Sanford slowly working his way to admitting he ran off to Argentina on an affair (he hasn't said it yet, but we know we're getting there).

2:29: He's invoking "God's laws" now, "to protect us from ourselves." Still hasn't admitted the affair. How long can he stall?

2:30. Bottom Line: "I've been unfaithful to my wife." Stunner there. I can never talk about wanting to go on the AT again without my wife wondering about what I am doing.

2:31. Please be nice to me so you don't hurt my family. Yeah, right.

2:32. Can we get Elliot Spitzer on as a commentator? Actually, really I do assume that the cable news channels will find a way to spend most of their time now talking about Spitzer and John Edwards and, of course, Bill Clinton.

2:34. Wife has known for 5 months. Now talking about his congressional Christian bible sessions. Ooookay.

2:35. Reporter: "Were you alone." Sanford: "Obviously not." Geez, reporters are stupid (in another post we'll get to Charlie Gibson last night on ABC's World News Tonight reporting on Sanford being "found" on the AT). They almost make me sympathetic to Sanford.

2:39. He's committed to getting his heart right. And putting other people first. Which I'm sure is what he was thinking when he refused stimulus money for unemployed and education in his state.

P.S. Most other commentators seem to be giving Sanford props for being honest and open, granting him sympathy for leveling with people. I'm calling BS on that. He abdicated his constitutional responsibility to his state for the better part of a week. He ran off to South America to be with his lover. He left his kids alone for Father's Day. I'm not convinced he went to Argentina to break up his affair, but I don't really care, either. He wouldn't have confessed today had he not been busted in the airport in Atlanta by a rare reporter actually doing her job. And he made a choice about how this was going to become public. The sympathy is undeserved and unearned. He's a hypocrite and a liar. And I'm not preaching here - I could care less about the affair.

Among others, Josh Marshall is inclined to give some credit to Governor Sanford, saying "But it's worth remembering whoever it was who said that none of us deserve to be known or remembered only for our worst moments." Which is fair enough. However, nobody said that Sanford should be known only for his worst moments. This moment is now, and right now the focus is properly on his impropriety, his abandonment of his job, his deception of his constituents. We live in the moment. And this moment was made by his actions and his choice, and nobody else's. Now is not the time to give him credit. History will allow us to take a step back, look at the forest through the trees, and assess this event along with other events in his life.

Like, for instance, his attempt to deprive his state's schools of stimulus money, or to deprive same-sex couples the right to be in lawful, and faithful, marriages.

UPDATE: David Corn on another compelling reason why Sanford doesn't deserve our sympathy - because Sanford has had absolutely none for those whose hardship was the result of events (unlike Sanford's disappearance, affair and lies) entirely outside of their control, e.g. Katrina victims.