At times like this I realize my inadequacies as a wordsmith. What original slant could one possibly bring to the Sanford story? Sure, we all know that you couldn’t make it up, but that doesn’t help a guy in my situation. As I write, the story is already over 5 hours old, and in this internet age that’s an eon. Everything that could possibly be said has been said, except no one has yet said what will surely come out in the next day or two, which everyone will agree, once it comes out, could also not be made up.
One has to wonder where the tipping point is. Fairly or not, there’s getting to be a presumption that your average Catholic priest is a pedophile. After all, numbers don’t lie. At what point will the presumption arise in the public mind that every right wing holier than thou politician is breaking the sixth commandment, not to mention, in some cases, some strictures from Leviticus (see, e.g., Larry Craig).
But perhaps we should feel a bit of sympathy for Sanford. It can’t be is this is the level of enthusiasm you manage to evoke in your wife, who had this to say about her hubbie:
I believe enduring love is primarily a commitment and an act of will…
That called to mind this colloquy from the Gondoliers (Gilbert & Sullivan, you see-I brought music in without mentioning Evita) among the Duke and Duchess of Plaza-Toro and their daughter, Casilda, the subject being Casilda’s upcoming arranged marriage:
CAS. Well, whatever happens, I shall, of course, be a dutiful wife, but I can never love my husband.
DUKE. I don’t know. It’s extraordinary what unprepossessing people one can love if one gives one’s mind to it.
DUCH. I loved your father.
DUKE. My love–that remark is a little hard, I think? Rather cruel, perhaps? Somewhat uncalled-for, I venture to believe?
DUCH. It was very difficult, my dear; but I said to myself, “That man is a Duke, and I will love him.” Several of my relations bet me I couldn’t, but I did–desperately!
But it probably would take an effort of will to love a guy who could write this sort of drivel:
You have a particular grace and calm that I adore. You have a level of sophistication that so fitting with your beauty. I could digress and say that you have the ability to give magnificent gentle kisses, or that I love your tan lines or that I love the curve of your hips, the erotic beauty of you holding yourself (or two magnificent parts of yourself) in the faded glow of the night’s light – but hey, that would be going into sexual details…
And yes, that last line is really in his emails to his Argentinean inamorato.
Sounds like the Duchess has nothing on Sanford’s wife, since the Duchess had a much easier task.
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