Alas, poor Mark...

I honestly think S.C. Governor Mark Sanford should not lose his job because of his affair with Argentinian news-hottie Maria Belen Chapur. Nor should he lose it because he may have misused a few thousand dollars of taxpayer money. No, he should lose his job because he is TOO FUCKING STUPID to be in charge of anything.

How stupid is he? Let us count the ways:

1. He had the cash to fly to Argentina for a long weekend, but it never occurred to him, apparently, to use that cash to bring his mistress to South Carolina instead, thus avoiding the suspicious absence from his job. He could probably have trumped up some ridiculous "journalism exchange program," put her up at the nearest Hilton on the taxpayer's dime, and banged her between interviews.

2. He didn't check his voicemail for three days. He didn't even call a junior staffer to say, "Hey, I needed some down time - lots of personal shit going on - I'm camping out on the trail - call me if there's an emergency." No, he just disappeared, thus causing half the state government, and hence the PRESS, to start asking questions about his whereabouts.

3. He admitted to other "indiscretions" in the same breath as he expressed his intentions to keep his job.

4. He then added that those indiscretions were not sexual and expected the public to believe it. If they weren't sexual, why did he feel compelled to confess them? Having a drink too many and a dance with a strange woman is an indiscretion in Syria, not The United States, not even in the conservative state of South Carolina.

5. In front of the cameras, he says, "I owe it too much to my boys and to the last 20 years with Jenny to not try this larger walk of faith." The thinly veiled message being that he thinks of his situation as a personal - and spiritual - challenge to be overcome and that the public is naive enough to buy that whole "I'm really a good Christian" bullshit. Worse - he might actually believe it himself.

6. In front of the cameras, he says, "This was a whole lot more than a simple affair, this was a love story. A forbidden one, a tragic one, but a love story at the end of the day."

Man. Wow. I don't know whether to laugh or call a suicide hotline on his behalf. Or both. I don't think it takes a psychiatrist to see just how loaded this sentence is. He obviously sees himself as a character in some poor man's version of Hamlet, the doomed lover and all that. He is completely dissociated, out-of-body...I don't know what the right term is, but he is GONE. Infatuated. Baby batter on the brain. And whether he's conscious of it or not, he sees himself as a kind of victim in all this. With the exception of the proper grammar and spelling, this is a text message from a drunk, recently-dumped high school boy. Maybe it's just a mid-life crisis thing, but then again, most men in that situation just buy a Harley. This guy sees himself as a Shakespearean tragic hero, and as Shakespeare himself made clear more than once, guys like that don't do well in government.

No Shit

Here's one of the few sensible things uttered in the last 24 hours.

Beyond the obvious fact that the guy could dance, I was never a fan of Jacko. That said, I think the media have a lot of balls to be exploiting his death to the degree they have been these past 2 days. Yes, he was huge. Yes, people want to know what happened. But for the past 2 decades, they took every opportunity to highlight every freakish event in his life - the dangling baby, the ranch, the monkey, the children, every nose job, every rumor, every sighting, - all for the ratings, of course. And now they're trotting out every fawning cultural mouthpiece to talk about what an "icon" he was, what a legend, what an inspiration, all in those treacly, reverent tones usually employed by Garrison Keillor. How the talking heads can look into a camera and do it without embarrassment is amazing to me.

Politician Caught in Affair (yawn)

I know Republicans aren't the only folks who cheat, but since they've spent the past few decades insisting they are the party of "family values," it's all the more hilarious when they get caught. Gay marriage is a threat to the institution of marriage? No, your fake marriage is. Kudos to the wife for kicking this hypocrite's ass out of the house.

Get Over Yourselves

If the GOP wonders why it has an image problem, this is why: its most public figures - elected or otherwise - come off as uptight, humorless whiners every time they open their mouths. When someone on television mentions you in a joke, the best thing to do is run with it and be a good sport or not respond at all. Why can't these people figure that out?

The only criticism I have of Letterman's response to Palin's whining is that he didn't make it clear that the Spitzer and A-Rod jokes were made at the expense of Spitzer and A-Rod more than anyone else. That's obvious to anyone of even average intelligence; unfortunately, too many Americans (some of them holding public office) are suffering from an acute irony deficiency and need to have jokes explained to them.

Goddamn Breeders

As if Jon and Kate + Eight isn't enough, Octo-Lips is getting her own show. I don't know who's more stupid, Nadya Suleman (for never realizing that humans only have two nipples for a reason) or the segment of the population some network executive knows will actually watch the daily trials of a clearly insane woman and her litter.

America has a disturbing children-fetish. By fetish I don't mean whipped cream and ball-gags, I mean this stupid fascination with children, or more accurately the idea of children. Want to keep marijuana illegal? Do it for the children. Want to bail out a corporation? Do it for the children. Want to shoot a guy in church? Do it for the children (and Jesus).

But the children are our future! No, the children are the children's future. My future is a deck chair and a diaper.