Note to Mark Sanford: On your own time, please

July 2nd, 2009 at 10:01am Linda Grist Cunningham

Been a very busy couple of weeks for news, always a good thing for someone in my business. Started with the train derailment and ethanol fire of June 19 and just kept going. Been good for business here at the News Tower, in print and online.

Twisted around and through the half dozen celebrity deaths, the petulant bickerings of ineffective state legislatures nationwide, the ebb and flow of the stock market and the cranky discussions on “cap and trade” proposals,  has been that tasty news morsel known as “South Carolina Gov. Mark Sanford.”

First he disappears to find himself along the Appalachian Trail. Then, no one knows where he is. Then, he’s being met by a reporter at an airport as he returns from Argentina. What the heck is a South Carolina governor doing in Argentina, everyone asked. Some sort of spy mission? Trade? Nope. Woman trouble.

I care not a whit for the foibles of Gov. Sanford. He’s just one more in a long, long line of dumb, middle-aged men in high profile, elected positions doing brain-dead stuff — from affairs of the heart and other body parts to wrecking assorted iconic companies.

No, what I want is for Gov. Sanford to do his soul-searching in private. He is neither the first, nor will he be the last, human being to wrestle with such drama. But, this line from an Associated Press story made me want to scream: “Sanford is a man writhing in agony as his emotions battle his sense of duty - to his wife, to their four sons, to his office.”

Crickey, governor. Stop giving interviews. Zip your zipper and your lip. Resign. Go fix your mess, and not on South Carolina’s dime.

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