Cringe TV - the Mark Sanford scandal, or Don't Cry For Me, Argentina...

A couple of weeks ago, over at Women On, Lisa invited writers to post on Cringe TV, the kind of stuff that makes you cringe when you watch it, referencing an NPR article that cited the stories then circulating about Jon and Kate Plus Eight. I read the article and found it interesting and thought about writing something, but hey! It's summer. The commute is long and hot, and when I'm home, if I'm not inside reading and making various pasta salads and drinking ice tea, well, the deck needed refinishing, and my flower beds needed work, among other things. So I didn't write anything, and didn't think I was going to write anything on that particular topic...but then the Mark Sanford story broke, and it's pushed me over the edge.

Would someone please tell the Sanfords, both of them, to just shut up? And it would help if the "news" media would develop some sense of journalistic integrity and just stop interviewing the two of them, period. In case you've been somewhere that you've managed to avoid this fiasco, I'm referring to the Governor of South Carolina and his wife, and their ENDLESS venting of their feelings, his and hers, about his having an affair with his soulmate (his description - puh-leez!), with whom he recently spent a week in Argentina (where she lives) while telling his staff he was hiking the Appalachian Trail. Sanford is a conservative Republican, by the way, a member of the God Squad who, while in Congress, opposed gay civil unions and abortion, among other things. He was, of course, an outspoken critic of President Clinton during the Monica Lewinsky scandal, voting for impeachment and calling for the President to resign, saying, "I think it would be much better for the country and for him personally (to resign)... I come from the business side. If you had a chairman or president in the business world facing these allegations, he'd be gone."

Now that the shoe is on the other foot, so to speak, he's not considering resigning, himself. In a message posted on his website, he writes that for God to really work in his life (I'm not making this up!), he (Mark, lover-boy Sanford) needs to stay in office.

Uh-huh. Dunno about you, but when I vote for our elected officials, it's not because I think public office is a way for God to really work in their lives. What a dumb ass. And as if that weren't enough, he will not shut up about it! And now his wife is talking too. At first, I felt sorry for her, especially after he said Maria Chapur is his soulmate, but he's going to "try" to "fall back in love" with his wife. This was in the news conference a couple of days ago in which he mentioned he's "crossed the line" with other women, too. But since Jenny Sanford has taken to quoting the bible in her smarmy comments about the situation, I'd like her to shut up too.

Hank Stuever, who writes about TV and pop culture for The Washington Post, is quoted in the NPR article as saying: "People now spend a considerable amount of time deconstructing what just happened to them," with the result that "our worst instincts are reflected back on ourselves."

The endless press coverage of this sordid story is a textbook illustration of that statement. The Sanfords have four young sons who will no doubt eventually read every word each of their parents is now saying about this miserable situation. If only someone would please point out to these two bible thumpers that those are four excellent reasons for the two of them to shut the hell up.