No, I'm not finished with it.
Last night I had the house to myself (the remote) so I settled down to a warm teev to see what the world has to say about Governor Sanford.
What a nice looking guy, seriously. You can see why we're all so upset. He seems so presidential, has a little of the Lincoln jaw.
Anyway, the media is brutal and I'm pretty worried about the Gov's mental health. A sensitive man like him could get suicidal listening to what I heard last night, pundits and comics blasting him to smithereens. So we won't blast here, not much.
On the other hand, there's so much to blast.
You play you pay, Governor. And we learn all kinds of things, do we not, from our elected officials.
David Letterman feels sorry for not only the first family, but also the good people of South Carolina who have to endure this embarrassment. The governor, facing television cameras tells us:
(a) he went hiking
(b) he was exhausted
(c) he needed to get away
(d) he's really, really sorry--the list went on like the thank you speeches at the Academy Awards, and
(e) oh yeah, he had an affair.
He should have come clean, continues Letterman, should have told us straight up: I was taking care of business. You don't say, I was hiking on the Appalachian Trail. Say, I had s a board of trade meeting in South America. I'm looking at silos.
Letterman's top ten excuses. We'll add our own in a second.
10. Did I say hiking? I meant, cheating!
9. I had to do something after the devastating news about Jon and Kate!
8. I learned everything I know from Governor Spitzer.
7. Let's talk about more important things, like the Nestle Tollhouse cookie recall.
6. I learned everything I know from Governor McGreevey (apparently McG had an affair with his limo driver)
5. It's Ahminadajab's fault.
4. If you met my wife, you'd leave the country, too.
3. I'm auditioning for the Amazing Race (whatever that is)
2. If you run the state and have to leave the country for a week, since when do you need to tell someone?
1. It wasn't me, it was my alter ego, Bruno.
So let's add a few!
10. I can't communicate well with my wife, can't tell or show her what I need or want, it's too embarrassing to talk that way.
9. After all, she's really scary. Have you met her?
(She looks like the nicest person you'll ever want to meet, and she doesn't need him, by the way, her family owns the Skill tool company and has an MBA).
8. I have no imagination, zero.
7. I believe that it is women who are responsible for keeping their men interested, and that means they should be tan, preferably show tan lines.
6. If you have a close friend then how are you supposed to be able to stop that friendship from becoming sexual? Especially if you share so many of the same things, like you both have children? And why wouldn't you ask her for her email address?
5. I have an honest face, the people love me, I can get away with this. I think I can, I think I can, I think I can.
4. Denial is just a river in Egypt. Maybe I'll go there, too, check out some silos.
3. I'm in politics. What do you want?
2. I have a spiritual adviser so I'm working on it. Love the sinner, hate the sin.
1. And as Bob and Ray, that famous radio comedy team used to say, paraphrasing Nixon
NUTS! I'll never run again!
therapydoc
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30 comments:
Good ones Therapy Doc. I'm wondering though when the marriage became a desert. I don't care much about his sexual conduct (I like what the Big Book says on, of all places, page 69). But it seems that he has estranged himself so much from the people of the state, the legislators, and others before the affair ever surfaced. Now there is sufficient cannon fodder to blast him out of office.
I would say that if he makes restitution for using tax payer dollars for his trips (if he did that), for being AWOL from the job, and can focus back on the job of being the gov. for this messed up state, then I am willing to say don't resign. And I have the opposite of political views from the Gov. But I don't want to see anyone broken and kicked. And an amends (with change of behavior) is acceptable.
I don't have cable, but when I'm up @ my friends' I like to watch the Rachel Maddow show on MSNBC. She devoted WAY too much of the show to this last night. Close to 40mins. This deserves 15 tops. NEXT! Who cares that much? I sure don't. I had a much more intrequing conversation about my friend's sexuality...
Oh, I would say tan but no tan lines is preferable ... more sexy, wouldn't you? Come on wives, keep your man interested!
"Get therapy" is right.
Nevertheless, these media spotlights on marital infidelity are such a horrific intrusion on family privacy. I wish we would cut it out, already.
I'll tell you why I care. A person who holds himself up to be a leader should lead people. And this direction, the way this leader is going, and the way other "leaders" seem to go, whether political or religious, by the way, is not the direction that I want my grandchildren to go.
It is covert permission that says: People get mixed up. Sorry.
Don't. Don't get mixed up. Not if we elect you to lead us.
Fine, I'm finished.
I do not care who he chooses to share his bed and body with. Even if he is a leader.
I do care, however, that he denounced others whose actions are comparable.
The e-mails (I confess I read them) are so cheesy that I am certain it is his first transgression. And I bet he is in love.
The transgression itself, I can shrug off. In congress with denouncements of others who cut roughly the same path? Not so much.
Rise by the rhetoric. Fall by the rhetoric.
That's the truth.
I like your top 10 better than Letterman's. He has really been OFF his game lately hasn't he! Maybe that is another post from the doc..
Your top 10 was waaaaay better than Letterman's. Your entire article made much more sense to me than the one or two things I read. Thankyou.
Agh! There's way too much time being spent on this!
What bugs me about it is that it's so commonplace that it doesn't even surprise us anymore.
And how do people who choose to live their lives so publicy, by going into politics, movies, etc., come to believe that they will not get caught behaving this way? There's got to be so much arrogance required to think that you can get away with whatever you try.
Hi, therapydoc -
Your humor is the best! Thanks!
- Marie (Coming Out of the Trees)
http://mmaaggnnaa.wordpress.com/
Of all the excuses I've heard, so far, the only one I care about (only because he is a leader) is that he broke a sacred promise to his wife and in doing so, he gave us all permission to doubt him, to doubt his promises to us, to KNOW that he is not dependable and worthy of our trust and our well being that was placed in him when he took office.
If he will betray her, he will betray anybody else especially those of us he doesn't even know.
yep he screwed up, yep he covered it up, yep he lied about it all. Perhaps therapy rather than persecution might be in order after all we all live by own morals and yet do as he does and screw them up all the time. But we so like telling other people they are worse than us so we can feel better.
And heck i have even heard of him and i live in australia .
I find you rather brilliant and quite hilarious :)
AUSTRALIA! Kangaroos! Hiking! I'll bet that's his next stop.
Well I'm actually a resident of SC and honestly the affair doesn't bug me. What bugs me is, 1. the denouncement of others in similar situations and religiousizing (not a word, I know) of politics 2. he decided to leave for 7 days, not tell anyone and not make arrangements should any decisions need to be made (it is hurricane season afterall). I'm sure he would have checked in eventually, but the whole thing was handled badly, from the answers his office gave, the dropping of his security detail, the leaving the country in secret . . . Just bad politics and he should have known better.
I can see his need for him to get a break. On Wed before he disappeared his republican-run legislature overturned 10 of his vetoes. 10! That speaks volumes of his politics . . . he is always at war with our legislature and they are from the same party!
McGreevey's scandal (I was a resident of NJ at that time) was that he announced he was gay, which the state didn't care about, what we cared about was that he made his young boyfriend head of the NJ dept of homeland security.
Thank you, thank you. That was great.
What we're going to hear, you heard it here first, is that Gov Sanford will say that he's bi-polar, or uni-polar, or cyclo-thymic, we'll hear some diagnosis for this philandering.
But I'm going to tell you that there's only one, and that's sociopathy. If you want to cheat, you tell your spouse, let's break up, I want to have sex with someone else.
OR, you say, what do you think about that, how should we handle it?
You don't haul off and cheat on her.
Be a mensh, for crying out loud. (a human being, as opposed to an animal.
I really could care less about people's sexual escapades, but like you therapy doc, I'm more concerned with the position that he ASKED to be in in leading the state of S. Carolina. If you desire to live a double life, then don't go into politics, plain and simple. And he had a total lack of responsibility by not being at all available. Total lack of responsibility,or sense of anything but egocentricity. Now. Let's move on already. To something MUCH more important, like Michael Jackson's issues! Hah!
LOL i reckon hed love australia you can hide over here for ages and ages and not get caught mind you youd have to be a bloody idiot to go bush without some experience
I think I was too harsh calling his behavior sociopathic. But that other part of the comment, he'll. . .
say that he's bi-polar, or uni-polar, or cyclo-thymic, we'll hear some diagnosis for this philandering
still holds.
'did I say hiking? I meant cheating' lol!
I wish the whiney boy (not wino boy) would just get over himself. Give us a break.
It is funny and then it isn't. Amazing how easily we can screw our live's up.
I recently asked you about countertransference, and you asked for more specifics. I guess I'll just give you the scenario. Of course, I'm changing some things to protect and because I'm HIPPA compliant....
I have an 18 year old client who was adopted 3 years ago from another country. She has another year of high school, which makes her not really independent yet. Her father had died suddently, her mother abandoned her and drank heavily after this occurance. She spent some time in an orphanage, where there were apparently no rules. She is naive and developmentally immature. She is gorgeous though and has picked up on the language well. She doesn't like the rules in her house and recently simply told her parents she wasn't coming home for the night. Her parents, who had been thru this before with her told her she either needed to come home at appointed time, or she'd have to have independent living. They held their word. Of course things went down hill. I tried to help her get into the youth shelter here which she is still eligible for because she is in high school.
I have a hard time counseling her and find the counter transference very strong. I should mention that I have an 18 and 15 year old son. I have attempted to talk to her in the "how do you plan to take care of this predicament" but I find myself spending a lot of time on how unsafe her behaviors are, on how she will struggle living on her own, on "just follow your parents rules and this won't be an issue". She's also very quiet and reserved by nature, so there's a lot of silence. HOw do others deal with countertransference?
By not dealing with you, rather, dealing with her. All that you said about her history is what you would work on, the abandonment, drinking, father-loss, sexuality, anger. Cool stuff like that.
You've got so much to talk about, and same goes with your own kids. (Parents often talk with their kids about their own issues, not their kids' issues, and of course, everyone has them, even kids.
I live in SC and I'm horrified by Sanford's over-sharing, as well as the coverage and the focus. What makes me the maddest is he seems totally oblivious to the pain he is causing his staff, family and constituency - and how irresponsible it was to go AWOL for 5 days. He says he's sorry, then holds an AP press conference? If I were on his communications staff I would quit... he should have kept this quiet until he was out of office and let the people who are paid tax payer dollars handle it. Governor's office staffs have been doing this for decades - that part is nothing new. Call me cynical, but there is too much real work to be done to allow any one person to mess it up. Shut up or resign. BTW - I think his wife is awesome. I'm beginning to think she was the real governor :)
As a North Carolinian, I am growing tired of Gov.Sanford's excessive over-sharing because there is no justification for cheating on his wife. It is very clear through his revelations that Gov. Sanford is also very much in love with his mistress not his wife. He should quit his job, end the marriage, and move to Argentina to be with his mistress.
BTW, If I were Jenny Sanford, I would seriously consider looking into cutting my losses from this overly self-involved man.
Thanks Adrian and Margo and everyone else from the Carolina's chiming in. That James Taylor song really does come to mind, gotta' say.
I'm out visiting new blogs tonight and came across yours. Love it. Thanks for sayin' it straight.
Blessings,
Sandy
Hubris. A disease often rampant in physicians, (present company excluded, I'm sure), CEOs, and politicians.
Everyone needs therapy!!!!
I totally understand humanity. Sometimes we keep on doing what we shouldn't be doing until we finally learn. Unfortunately, the longer it takes us to learn our lesson and change our ways, the more people we hurt. It's so important to seek wisdom over self-gratification...
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