Topic: Washington Examiner
The award for the most bizarre defense of Mark Sanford's affair comes from Noemie Emery, who in a July 1 Washington Examiner column declares that Sanford is just like Alexander Hamilton, FDR and JFK in that history shows that leaders who cheat on their wives can still be good Americans:
Another thing to remember in these situations is that snap judgments made at a distance can have little basis in fact. Is it true a man's character is all of a piece, and one who breaks vows to his wife will also break vows to his country? Think again.
Of course, Sanford's patriotism isn't the issue -- it's that he abandoned the state he was supposed to be leading for five days to fly to Argentina to be with his mistress without letting anyone know where he was.
UPDATE: Emery also makes this observation:
Unhappy families are not alike, and neither are those who have made them unhappy: Gary Hart was a flake, Bill Clinton a delayed/prolonged adolescent, Eliot Spitzer a creep; Jim McGreevey and Larry Craig even creepier.
So homosexuality, suspected or actual, is "creepier" than procuring prostitutes?
