I feel badly for Mark Sanford. His e-mails seem to show genuine emotion, love, and internal conflict over a difficult situation in which many adults find themselves. Though I would never condone adultery, I believe it is a mistake to paint one-time offenders who enter into a second loving relationship with the same brush we use to paint womanizing repeat cheaters. I tend to think that although cheating is always a result of poor choices, much of the world exists in a vast gray area where outside objective judgments are difficult – if not impossible. Read more »
-
25Jun
By: swampette
Categories: politics Comments: 1 -
07May
By: swampette
Categories: politics Comments: 0I know that I’m late to the party on commenting on Meghan McCain, since she’s already been media topic-of-the-day a couple times now since the election. However, I started following her on Twitter yesterday (another bandwagon I’m late for), and I have to admit, she’s very charming. She’s even pretty moderate; in the wake of the news that Maine had legalized gay marriage, she said, “Congrats to Maine, such amazing news!!!!!”. And some Democratic friends of mine have commented that if every Republican were like her, they’d be more likely to support a Republican.
It all sounds a little familiar.
These are almost the exact feelings expressed for John McCain a few years ago. He was a seemingly moderate, funny, Democrat-seducing guy whom the press couldn’t write a bad story about. The problem is, the conservative underbelly was still there, and it took the spotlight of an election to expose it. And I imagine that Meghan is the same way, were she to run for office: if she had to articulate a position on a wide range of issues, if she had to woo voters in a Republican primary, and if she had to provide differences between herself and a Democratic opponent, the charm would start to wear off.
Democrats wanted to believe that John McCain was one of them, but he was a Republican for a reason. Granted, Meghan may just be a Republican because her father is one of the most famous Republicans there is, but there would have to be some policy stances to back it up were she to run.
With any luck, though, she won’t consider elected office, and we’ll get to keep the facade. I mean, she likes the Flaming Lips – who would want to lose that?

