I find it very interesting that Mark Sanford is now equating himself to King David:
I have been doing a lot of soul searching on that front. What I find interesting is the story of David, and the way in which he fell mightily, he fell in very very significant ways. But then picked up the pieces and built from there.
No where in the Bible does it say you can pick and choose which parts you want to live by, so I have to Matthew 7:1
Don’t judge, so that you won’t be judged either
Judge is exactly what Mark Sanford did back in 1998 during the Clinton impeachment hearings:
In 1998, Sanford was a Republican congressman from South Carolina when he demanded “moral clarity” from Clinton and called on him to resign. “Very damaging stuff. This one’s pretty cut and dried,” Sanford told The Post and Courier in September 1998. “I think it would be much better for the country and for him personally [to resign].”
Sanford is refusing to leave office, yet he judged Bill Clinton and voted for him to be removed from office. This is a pure double standard, and one becoming more common amongst Republicans every day. Sadly the religious right is the enablers of this double standard. Like the guy on the corner trying to sell drugs, the religious right tries to sell votes to Republican politicians by getting them to say what they want to hear.
Perhaps the best path to recovery for the Republican Party is to just tell the dealer “no”. Tell the religious right that they will no longer bow to them and that they can no longer lead by a double standard. A majority of Americans are not going to tolerate this anymore. Republicans already point some of the blame for their fall from power to people like Larry Craig and Mark Foley. Now they can add Mark Sanford and John Ensign to their list of scapegoats, but the part as a whole needs to realize they are equally as guilty as these men.
Mark Sanford should do the right thing, not only for his state, but for his party. He should resign from office. If anything being governor is about the same as having two full time jobs. How can he work on making amends to his family and repairing the damage his libido has done to them if he continues serving?