The Political Obituary of Mark Sanford

The story of Mark Sanford and his incredibly un-majestic fall from grace has now officially gone from strange and stupid to disgraceful. After starting off the week by comparing himself to King David - in what may quite possibly be the most transparent attempt at Social Conservative pandering ever witnessed - Sanford has now followed up by saying he feels like Jimmy Stewart at the end of It's a Wonderful Life, refusing to shut up about unnecessary details of his personal life, and, now, telling us that his Argentine Mistress is his "soul mate" - despite the fact that he still really wants to work things out with his wife.

Because that's clearly what every woman wants you to say (to the National Press, no less) when you're trying to save your marriage: "I really love this other woman, but I'll try and make it work with you, dear!"

Jenny Sanford, if you're listening, please don't take this scumbag back. Ever. He doesn't deserve you. Hell, he doesn't deserve the hooker that Eliot Spitzer slept with.

In retrospect, it having been nearly a full week since Sanford admitted he lied to his family, staff, and the people he works for, the hypocrisy of this whole situation is both disappointing and disgusting in the truest sense of those words. Indeed, having spent the last 6 years in the trenches, defending Governor Sanford as best I could, this whole scandal has stung me perhaps a little bit more than it otherwise would have - or should have, for that matter.

No more. Never again will you find me down in the arena, as Teddy Roosevelt would have put it, fighting on behalf of the man who was stupid enough to think that, as a public figure, he could have gotten away with something like flying to Argentina for a fling with his mistress. Or who thought it would be okay to take State funds to finance such travels. Or who thought that, despite being entrusted by voters with the responsibilities of the Governor's Office, he could vanish, leaving an entire State without a Chief Executive in one of the most brash examples of Dereliction of Duty I've ever seen. Or who successfully attained the highest Office our State has to offer by promoting family values and then attempted (and continues to attempt, natch) to destroy his own family. Or who made his reputation on being a 'straight-shooter' and then proceeded to purposefully lie to his staff, family, State employees, and constituents. Or who called on Bill Clinton to resign in 1998 and now vows to stay on 'till the bitter end, thus engaging in the kind of absurd hypocrisy only found in politics.

Of all the issues arising with this story, however, the most offensive, on a personal level, is simply that Mark Sanford committed adultery, betraying his wife and kids; and that he is now using this personal transgression to embarrass the State of South Carolina, and those of us he was elected to represent.

To be even more blunt, Mark Sanford should resign the Governorship of South Carolina; in part because, if he is to save his marriage and do what is best for his 4 young boys, he clearly needs some 'away time' to straighten out his messed up personal life. Maybe he's having a mid-life crisis. Maybe he's really in love with another woman. Maybe he needs to spend some time on Bull Street. I don't know. But what I do know is that all of the things he claims he's trying to do - and that he should be doing - vis-a-vis his family are in no way being helped by the continued media circus surrounding him (which he keeps making worse by being totally and utterly incapable of either shutting the hell up or letting a level-headed spokesman write out a coherent statement for him to read).

However, more important to the question of resignation are the politics of the issue; because, let's be honest, adultery is a disgusting thing to do, and denigrates your personal character, but it doesn't affect your abilities to be a Statesman and shouldn't be an impeachable offense. And yes, fellow Republicans, that includes when Bill Clinton does it. However, Mark Sanford, as noted above, improperly used State funds and, by all reasonable accounts, committed what amounts to Dereliction of Duty on his most recent 5-day jaunt to Buenos Aires. Those are both grounds for legal disciplinary action.

Moreover, and of the greatest concern at this point, Mark Sanford is disgracing the Office, State, and People that he represents. He may want to stay on and fight it out, but the fact is that he has no political capital left to work with. He already had a dysfunctional relationship with both the State Legislature and Judiciary (many would say non-functional...), but he was still effective because he had, as always, the support of the people. Indeed, throughout his time in office, both in the House of Representatives and in Columbia, Mark Sanford has always been consistently conservative - and his votes and actions have always reflected the views of the conservative South Carolina constituents he has acted on behalf of.

He no longer has our support. He lost it when he betrayed our trust and our values.

Over 50% of South Carolinians now want Governor Sanford to resign. For the sake of his State and with the servant's heart that I still believe he came to politics with in the first place, he should do us the courtesy of heeding our wishes and acting, as always, on our behalf - one last time.

ObamaCare Debunked, Part II

Political optimism from people of my ilk is hard to come by these days; however, more and more, I'm slowly getting a sense that people are beginning to see ObamaCare for what it is - and rejecting it. Of course, with the way the President and the majority of Congress think, it still could pass anyways, despite the fact that people's attitudes towards health care are basically the same as they were in 1993-4; when they tried to force HillaryCare down our throats.

Anyways, the real reason I'm posting now is to direct your attention to a fine article over at Investor's Business Daily examining the myth that Medicare and Medicaid costs have risen at a slower rate than private health care costs. Needless to say, it's actually been the reverse, as Medicare and Medicaid have seen the highest increase in costs. This fact is significant because the great Hope-y One has cited Medicare as the example that his own 'Universal Helath Care' plan will follow. To quote:

"The centerpiece of President Obama's plan is a "public option," described by Tom Daschle as "a government-run insurance program, modeled after Medicare." The president asserts that this new Medicare-like program would cut costs.

But there are nearly 40 years of experience to consult, and they offer a resounding rebuttal. Across the years, Medicare's costs have risen far more than the costs of privately purchased care.

A new study I've completed, published by the Pacific Research Institute, takes all health-care spending in the United States and subtracts the costs of the two flagship government-run programs, Medicare and Medicaid. It then takes that remaining spending and compares its cost increases over time with Medicare's cost increases over time.

The results are clear: Since 1970 — even without the prescription drug benefit — Medicare's costs have risen 34% more, per patient, than the combined costs of all health care in America apart from Medicare and Medicaid, the vast majority of which is purchased through the private sector."

Indeed. Of course, this shouldn't come as a surprise to anyone who's been paying attention over the last, oh, let's say 15 years. Medicare and Medicaid costs have been growing at outrageous rates; further proving the absurdity of Obamarama's claim that he can reduce costs through more massive government spending. Simply put, it's kind of like trying to cure ballooning deficits with $trillion 'stimulus' packages - i.e. it's something that won't work, but that Obama will do anyways.

Furthermore, and more importantly, this article illustrates a concept that we have brought up here before: namely, that when it comes to solving the problem of rising health care costs, conservatives are the only ones with a solution that actually addresses and deals with this problem.

What Obama and other liberals have proposed is designed to give you enough money to be able to afford the higher cost. In other words, they just want to make sure you can cover it; and thus, whether or not their Government plans actually lower costs is irrelevant, so long as they can claim the number of uninsured Americans has decreased.

Nevermind that, for the umpteenth time, the problem is the cost, not the insurance, and the goal is the cure, and not coverage.

Conservatives want to introduce more competition into the market, drive down Doctors' costs with Medical Malpractice reform, etc., and, in the process, make the actual cost of health care more affordable - even if you don't get that fat check from the government to help you pay for it. This is why conservative solutions make better sense on healthcare, as they are more in line with what is actually needed.

And that would, of course, be those lower costs and higher cure rates - neither of which any Government-run health care program has ever done as well as the private sector.

Nikki Haley in 2010!

Having been both busy with life and severely disheartened by the very real probability of ObamaCare, several issues on which we here at the BSS would have happily bloviated, profusely, have been ignored over the last couple of months. Not least of such topics is the ongoing race to be the Republican nominee for South Carolina Governor in 2010. So far, this primary race has attracted 5 candidates; including, as of last month, State Senator Nikki Haley, of whom we have been highly complementary in the past.

To get right to the point, Haley is exactly what I look for in a politician; and thus, obviously, who I plan on supporting in the primary.

For those of you unfamiliar with the rest of the field, and interested in learning of its crappiness, here's the rest of the list. It consists of 3 genuine, South Carolina Good ol' Boys and some Libertarian Furman professor:

- Andre Bauer, our Lt. Governor, who's most famous for using legislative privilege to get out of speeding tickets and....uh...oh, yea! Sucking up to Senior citizens for votes.
- Gresham Barrett, a U.S Representative, who voted for the bailouts, said he would do so again, and yet still tries to claim the mantle of 'fiscal conservative' (He also got booed at the Greenville Tea Party).
- Henry McMaster, our state's Attorney General, who recently made himself look like a moron when he sued Craigslist in order to....try (unsuccessfully) and pander to voters. He also makes bad TV commercials about identity fraud.

(Finally, let's be honest, I'm sure the Furman Prof is a great guy, but the Alan Keys of the world are of no concern here)

Anyways, if you're one of those establishment Republicans who believes in the power of money and connections over that of people and liberty, then by all means vote for one of the 'Big 3' candidates.

However, if, like us, you believe in small, transparent government, in true fiscal conservatism (not our growing-the-state-budget-at-record-levels, State government, kind of fiscal 'conservatism'), and truly reforming South Carolina's corrupt state government, then you might want to give Nikki Haley a look.

Here's the website: Haley for Governor.

I must say, it's nice to have someone in this race I can get excited about.

Also of interest:

A good interview with RedState

On ObamaCare

Earlier today, while glancing at a television tuned to CNN, I happened to notice our President, on TV, doing what he does best - reverting to campaign mode. Only, this time, his campaign mode was a townhall meeting on the subject of the Socialized Medicine that he is about to hoist upon us, so I decided to give him a listen and see what he might have to say on the topic.

Needless to say, I was not impressed.

Rather than go over the basics of why government-run health care is not a good idea, again (browse past selections, if you so desire...), I thought I would simply address two points made by Obama himself, earlier today, in Wisconsin.

First, he tried to pass of the government-sponsored insurance plan he has proposed (something that even the liberal AMA has come out against) as simply another competitor to private insurance. Using all the key words that a true Capitalist likely would, The President did his best to explain to us commoners how government run health care will actually lower the cost of private insurance, and thus be beneficial to all.

The problem, of course, is that government is no ordinary competitor. The government can keep prices artificially low, as it not only has the power to print money, but also to dip into the funds of the US Treasury. In other words, the government can deficit spend to its heart's content, print as much money as it needs to run this "competitor," and raise taxes to finance its operations. Ordinary, private insurance companies, on the other hand can do none of these 3 things. Simply put, the problem with the President's argument is that he's trying to say the government's entry into the health insurance market isn't unfair to other competitors, despite the fact that the government is the very organization tasked with making the rules in that market.

In other words, it's like letting a referee play in the very same game that he's officiating.

It's not normal, and it gives the referee unfair advantages over the other players. Capitalism may not be the most gentle (for lack of a better word) economic system around, but it absolutely requires that all potential profit-makers be given the same opportunities as the others at the start of the game. (Hence the conservative belief in equality of opportunity over equality of outcome.) When the ref is playing, that simply doesn't happen.

The second issue I took with the tomfoolery I saw in Obama's speech was his continued insistence on the need to cut deficits. Indeed, the man desperately wants you to know that fiscal responsibility is important to him, too.

It is the type of thing that only a politician could say with a straight face.

The tortured logic that Obama continues to use, in which he claims that spending new, radically higher amounts of money on healthcare will actually reduce deficits, is beyond preposterous; indeed, it is a violation of the basic laws of mathematics. A trillion dollar deficit, plus additional spending, plus a still-tanking economy only equals a bigger deficit. That is, unless Obama plans to break shatter his promise not to raise taxes on 95% of Americans.

Of course, this is what we all should have come to expect from Obama and his team by now; afterall, ever since they've been in office, they've simply taken advantage of the personal popularity of the President to push every major item on the liberal agenda despite using some of the most asinine and downright idiotic justifications that anyone has ever heard. So let's be clear, this healthcare plan has nothing to do with fiscal responsibility or anything remotely resembling the concept - it is, plain and simple, Obama pushing his backdoor attempt at socialized medicine now, while he has the votes in Congress.

And so, with apologies to the Canadians, who will just have to deal with their own shitty system now, since, after this plan, ours isn't going to be worth driving south for, I guess all that's left to do is just buckle down, folks, because this behemoth of tortured logic and spending stupidity is coming, like it or not. It's "Change," afterall.