SC Senate investigating Mark Sanford

South Carolina Governor Mark Sanford holds forth at a press conference at the Greer DMV on Tuesday. He was mostly baited about the mysterious Maria from Argentina, and the fact that he was not wearing his wedding ring. (Photo by Owen Riley Jr of the Greenville News)

Yeah, sports fans, it got ugly!

~*~


More on the never-ending saga of Mark Sanford:

S.C. Senate's probe of Mark Sanford has little precedent
Only twice before has governor been investigated, historians say
By Tim Smith • Capital bureau • July 24, 2009
Greenville News

COLUMBIA — A Senate subcommittee today will begin what historians are calling an unprecedented investigation of a sitting governor in modern times when it convenes to look into the travel of Gov. Mark Sanford, with the governor and his family in Europe on a two-week vacation.

Sen. David Thomas of Fountain Inn, chairman of the Senate Finance Subcommittee on Constitutional Officers, announced the probe last week as part of his panel's oversight responsibilities. He has said it has nothing to do with his race for Congress.

Sanford announced June 24 that he engaged in a yearlong extramarital affair with an Argentine woman, Maria Belen Chapur. He denied spending state resources on the affair, but wrote the state a check for more than $3,000 after admitting he had met Chapur on an economic development trip to Argentina and Brazil in June 2008.

A State Law Enforcement Division review of Sanford's travel expenses on the five trips during which the governor said he met Chapur in Argentina or New York found no wrongdoing, SLED's director announced earlier this month.

Thomas said, however, the SLED review was based entirely on trips volunteered by Sanford. He said he wants a more thorough look at the governor's travel, to see where he went during the dozens of times he told his security detail not to follow him.

“It (the SLED review) only looked at five trips that zeroed in on Chapur,” Thomas said. “It did not look at the mass of trips and the issue that is in front of the committee, which is was there any misappropriation of state funds on non-state-related business.”

The other members of Thomas' three-member subcommittee may not appear today because they are on vacation, Thomas said, but he hopes at least one may attend anyway.

“If they can come, they can come,” he said. “If not, I can at least lay out the outline of what we're going to be doing.”

Thomas had planned to call SLED Director Reggie Lloyd as the panel's first witness but Lloyd said he couldn't make it on Friday, Thomas said. Lloyd is providing a memo about SLED's review but not the agency's formal report on the matter, Thomas said.

Jennifer Timmons, a SLED spokeswoman, said the report is “not available yet.”

The subcommittee's probe of a sitting governor is unusual, according to historians, and unprecedented in modern times.

A.V. Huff, a retired Furman University history professor who chairs the State Archives Commission, said only twice since reconstruction has the Legislature confronted a governor with an investigation or vote of nonsupport.

The last time, he said, was in the 1930s, when then-Gov. Olin Johnston demanded the resignation of the State Highway Commission, which refused, prompting the governor to call out the state militia to surround the agency.

The commission, he said, appealed to the Legislature, which refused to support the governor and the crisis faded.

“It was a political standoff, which I suspect is what is going to happen here,” he said, referring to Sanford.

The Legislature in 1872, Huff said, investigated then-Gov. Franklin Moses Jr. and he was indicted for stealing. Moses then surrounded the governor's mansion with troops to avoid arrest, he said.

University of South Carolina political science Professor Blease Graham said he doesn't know of any other instance in modern times in which lawmakers investigated a sitting governor.

“It is very unusual,” he said.

Officials in Sanford's office have reacted to the probe by Thomas' committee by saying the office will be cooperative but view the inquiry as unnecessary after the SLED review.

Thomas said he has invited other members of the Senate Finance Committee to attend.

He said he hopes the hearings can be finished in 30-45 days. Should the panel need subpoena power, he said it will need to request that from the full finance committee. He said his panel also might simply note that certain witnesses or officials were uncooperative in the subcommittee's report, should that happen.

Senator Thomas claims none of his colleagues have openly opposed the hearings. He says there are "innuendos" and "undercurrents" that he should not be continuing, but nobody has come right out and told him to stop.

I think they call that, talking out of both sides of your mouth.

Stay tuned, sports fans!

Governor Sanford's lovesick correspondence

At left: Governor Mark Sanford and the family he has betrayed. (Photo from Chapin, South Carolina's official website.)




I have retail inventory in a few days, and company coming next week... and what am I doing? What every self-respecting resident of South Carolina is doing, of course. Reading the steamy emails between Governor Mark Sanford and his paramour, Maria.

Interestingly, before the Governor's fun-filled press conference on Wednesday in which he admitted his affair, I joked on Aunt B's blog about the legendary Wilbur Mills and Fanne Foxe, known as the Argentine Firecracker. I wondered if the Governor was playing with similar fireworks, and damned if I wasn't right.

But what really surprises me about the emails between the Governor and Maria, is that he turns out to be a better writer than I expected:

Got back an hour ago to civilization and am now in Columbia after what was for me a glorious break from reality down at the farm. No phones ringing and tangible evidence of a day’s labors. Though I have started every day by 6 this morning woke at 4:30, I guess since my body knew it was the last day, and I went out and ran the excavator with lights until the sun came up. To me, and I suspect no one else on earth, there is something wonderful about listening to country music playing in the cab, air conditioner running, the hum of a huge diesel engine in the background, the tranquility that comes with being in a virtual wilderness of trees and marsh, the day breaking and vibrant pink coming alive in the morning clouds — and getting to build something with each scoop of dirt. It is admittedly weird but one of my more favorite ways of escaping the norms, constant phone calls and formalities that go with the office — and it probably fits with my weakness in doing rather than being — though you opened up a new chapter last week wherein I was happy and content just being. Last point worth further discussion. Afternoon projects had me outside and by days (sic) end I pretty much looked like a homeless person ... but in this case a very content one. Enough about my love of heavy equipment and woods at sunrise ...

While I was getting exhausted with one project after another at Coosaw work week, you were basking (I’m certain gloriously) on the beach..

Sounds great, hope to hear more about what sounds a great spot.

Will now finally get some sleep and write you a longer note with a few more profound thoughts tomorrow or Wednesday. In the meantime I send my love and hope you know I am thinking of you.. M

Hey, not bad. He should take up blogging, his GOP-fans (assuming he has any left) would eat it up. That "vibrant pink coming alive in the morning clouds" was pretty good. Do you think he plagiarized? (And what makes me think he would be the type of person to do that?)

And then it gets pretty hot:

Above all else I love that inner beauty about you. That gift of yours is going to make a tremendous difference in [The State deleted sons’ names] life — and in anyone’s life who is blest to be touched by yours — you need to rest very comfortably in that fact. As I mentioned in our last visit, while I did not need love fifteen years ago — as the battle scars of life and aging and politics have worn on this has become a real need of mine. You have a particular grace and calm that I adore. You have a level of sophistication that is so fitting with your beauty. I could digress and say that you have the ability to give magnificently gentle kisses, or that I love your tan lines or that I love the curves of your hips, the erotic beauty of you holding yourself (or two magnificent parts of yourself) in the faded glow of night’s light — but hey, that would be going into the sexual details we spoke of at the steakhouse at dinner — and unlike you I would never do that!

Three and finally, while all the things above are all too true — at the same time we are in a hopelessly — or as you put it impossible — or how about combine and simply say hopelessly impossible situation of love. How in the world this lightening strike snuck up on us I am still not quite sure. As I have said to you before I certainly had a special feeling about you from the first time we met, but these feelings were contained and I genuinely enjoyed our special friendship and the comparing of all too many personal notes (and yes this is true even if you did occasionally tantalize me with sexual details over the years!) — but it was all safe. Where we are is not. I have thought about it and in some ways feel I let you down in letting these complications come into a friendship that I hope will last till death. In all my life I have lived by a code of honor and at a variety of levels know I have crossed lines I would have never imagined. I wish I could wish it away, but this soul-mate feel I alluded too is real and in that regard I sure don’t want to be the person complicating your life. I looked to where I often look for advice and counsel, and in I Corinthians 13 it simply says that, “ Love is patient and kind, love is not jealous or boastful, it is not arrogant or rude, Love does not insist on its own way, it is not irritable or resentful, it does not rejoice in the wrong, but rejoices in the right, Love bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things and endures all things”. In this regard it is action that goes well beyond the emotion of today or tomorrow and in this light I want to look for ways to show love in helping you to live a better — not more complicated life. I want to help [one of Maria’s sons] with film guys that might help his career, etc. I also don’t want you walking20away (sic) from some guy (I take it the younger guy you mentioned a t dinner) because of me — and what we both have to see as an impossible situation. I better stop now least this really sound like the Thornbirds — wherein I was always upset with Richard Chamberlain for not dropping his ambitions and running into Maggie’s arms. The bottom line is two fold, my heart wants me to get on a plane tonight and to be in your loving arms — my head is saying how do we put the Genie back in the bottle because I sure don’t want to be encumbering you, or your options or your life. Put differently, given I love you, I don’t want to be part of the reason you are having less than an ideal week in what sounds like a cool spot.

Lastly I also suspect I feel a little vulnerable because this is ground I have never certainly never covered before — so if you have pearls of wisdom on how we figure all this out please let me know ... In the meantime please sleep soundly knowing that despite the best efforts of my head my heart cries out for you, your voice, your body, the touch of your lips, the touch of your finger tips and an even deeper connection to your soul. I love you ... sleep tight. M

I love how right-wing Christians quote the Bible when they are aroused. They do, you know, as if to give it the A-OK: I'm quoting the Bible, so it's CLEAN desire!

And who knew he liked THE THORNBIRDS? Damn, our Governor is a closet romantic and there was never the first clue.

The political questions everyone has now: who paid for the cars, gas, and plane fare for his many trysts? Apparently, it was a state car he drove to the Atlanta airport. (Surely a 'fiscally responsible' conservative like Mark Sanford would not charge the costs of flying to his private love-nest to the good people of South Carolina?) Is abandoning the state an impeachable offense? People are bloody livid, including (especially?) at least two Republicans I know.

If he resigns, we get Andre Bauer. Holy God, are we ready for that?

But it's been fun, yall. As I said on Aunt B's, an Obama campaign worker I hadn't seen in months came into the store Tuesday night while I was working...and we just grinned and cackled at each other. And that was before Wednesday's bombshell.

It's been a long time coming. Justice is sweet. Although when I look at Jenny Sanford's face in the photo above, and I see that tight smile I always thought was just plain snootiness, I now see forced politeness and possible disgust.

Jenny, I'm sorry that our schadenfreude is at the expense of your pain.

Don't Cry for me Argentina

Undoubtedly, when our disappearing Governor Mark Sanford heard about the infamous "Naked Hiking Day" that coincides with the Summer Solstice, he decided a change-of-venue was in order... that is, the story changes, once again.

Now, we learn that our disappearing governor was vacationing incommunicado in Argentina for 5 days. As Dead Air proclaimed correctly, he was not hiking the Appalachian trail. (Although the "Naked Hiking Day" thing was oodles of fun to think about, and photographers fanned out all over the trail, looking for the Governor in the buff.)

Report: Gov. Sanford was in Argentina, not hiking trail
The Associated Press • June 24, 2009

ATLANTA (AP) — South Carolina Gov. Mark Sanford is telling a newspaper that he was in Argentina during his unexplained 5-day absence, not hiking along the Appalachian Trail as his office previously said.

The Republican told The State newspaper in South Carolina that he arrived at the Atlanta airport Wednesday.

Sanford says he decided at the last minute to go to the South American country. The governor says he had considered hiking on the Appalachian Trail but wanted to do something "exotic."

Sanford says he returned after a five-day absence because the trip turned into more of a fuss than he ever expected.

The most wonderful facet of this whole fiasco has been the complete demolition of Sanford's presidential hopes. THANK GOD. The GOP will never nominate someone like this... or would they? (((thinks about Dubya and Sarah Palin)))

At least, if they do nominate him (doubtful at this juncture) the disappearing-Governor routine would make for a great attack ad. Voiceover: (picture of Buenos Aires) Governor Sanford disappeared for five days during Naked Hiking Day. Why?

Stay tuned, sports fans, the story can only get better!