Return to the “Appalahchian Trail”
With
one bizarre Facebook post Rep. Mark Sanford (R, SC) dis-engaged his
“Appalachian Trail” “soulmate,” and went from being a comeback kid to
being punchline, again. And that’s not even the crazy part.
Dumping someone
via Facebook isn’t new. Countless teenagers do it every day. It’s just
not something you’d expect from a grown man. Then again, Mark Sanford
doesn’t do the expected. Back in 2009, nobody expected then South Carolina governor Mark Sanford to go MIA for more than four days over Father’s Day weekend, leaving his hapless staff to tell the media that Sanford was “hiking the Appalachian Trail.”
No one expected one of the top 10 modern political sex scandals, or one of the longest, most painfully awkward press conferences ever.
No one expected
Sanford to battle back from scandal, disgrace, and divorce to ever hold
office again. But the philandering father of four boys managed to escape
impeachment, held on to his office, and even won a special election to fill the House seat vacated by Sen. Tim Scott.
Sanford found his way from the Appalachian Trail to the comeback trail,
and got engaged to his Argentine mistress — María Belén Chapur — along
the way.
No one, not even
his fiancé, expected the rambling, 2,346-word Facebook rant (since
deleted) about his court battles with his ex-wife (more on that in a
minute), in which he broke up with Chapur almost as an afterthought.
As for Sanford’s court battles with his former wife, Jenny, the two are headed to mediation over the latest dispute over the terms of their divorce. He wants regular visits with their 16-year-old youngest son. The
former Mrs. Sanford wants the Republican representative to undergo a
psychiatric exam and take parenting and anger management classes, in
complaint that also cited her son’s exposure to Ms. Chapur, and
demanded that Rep. Sanford refrain from “consuming or being under the
influence of illegal or unprescribed prescription drugs or excessive
amounts of alcohol” while the kid’s around.
Sanford’s ex has accused him of violating the terms of their divorce in several ways,
from repeatedly failing to pay his child support or pony up for the
eldest son’s tuition, to entering her home without her permission. But
the real humdinger is the stipulation that “no airplanes will be flown at the children”:
During her testimony, Jenny’s attorney, Deena S. McRackan, introduced into evidence a photograph taken at the farm and asked Jenny to describe it.This is a game of chicken on the Coosaw air strip. And it is Mark Sanford with a pack of children. And the plane is a Mooney. They fly 175 to 200 miles per hour and they fly straight at the children. And the game is to see who can stand up the longest.It turns out, the plane flown at children was no toy plane. It was an actual plane, owned and operated by John, another member of the Sanford clan, whom Mark described as the “crazy cousin with an airplane.” But, Mark insisted, while Jenny might not have approved of this “game,” she’d spent decades at the farm and was well aware of what kind of reckless “fun” occurred there, so it was sort of unfair of her to object to it now.
Well, that’s one way to get out of paying child support. But it kinda makes you wonder: Where does the GOP find these people?
On that note, here’s the best of the worst in wingnuttia this week.
- Pat Robertson blamed a “Jewish Radical” for booting God out of the Air Force oath. The Air Force announced that the words “so help me God” were optional, after an atheist airman crossed them out on his reenlistment papers. “What is wrong with the Air Force?”, Roberson asked. “How can they fly the bombers to defend us if they cave to one little guy?”
- Rush Limbaugh said a Florida State University football player would get a standing ovation for having the “guts” to yell obscenities about female genitalia.
- Limbaugh also informed his (presumably male) audience that “no’ means ‘yes’ if you know how to spot it.”
- Limbaugh also said “the Republican party is the equivalent of a battered wife.”
- In her latest column, Ann Coulter wrote that libertarians are “idiots” who deserve to “drown.” Well, we know who Coulter will blame if the GOP doesn’t take the Senate.
- Fox News commentator Todd Starnes claimed that schools oppose abstinence in order to protect their “condom profits.”
- North Carolina Republican Rep. Mark Walker said he would back going to war with Mexico over undocumented immigrants.
- Fox News host Elizabeth Hasselbeck managed to link the NFL’s domestic violence scandal to … wait for it … Benghazi!
- Meanwhile, Hasselbeck’s fellow Fox Newser Sean Hannity worried that NFL running back Adrian Peterson’s child abuse scandal would make it “illegal if a parent teaches the politically correct [incorrect?] view that being gay is not normal.”
- Texas conservative and Fox News favorite Dr. Steven Hotze warned listeners on a right-wing conference call about “perverted and deviant” gay people who want to overturn laws against pedophilia.
- Right-wingers at the Washington Times, Fox News, WorldNet Daily, and Newsmax now claim that the Obama administration is racially profiling gun owners.
- Wisconsin governor Scott Walker latest ad earned him an OSHA complaint for setting an unsafe example and proving he’s “never worked a day in his life.”
- Glenn Beck applauded parents who refuse to have their children vaccinated.
- Based on a “tip” from a fan about a shortage of prison guards in Texas, Beck also warned his audience that Ebola will be brought in to the U.S. by Nigerian prison guards, and become airborne.
- At a reunion for members of the House GOP class of 1994, Newt Gingrich warned that immigrants could be bringing Ebola across the southern border.
- In an interview with Newsmax’s J.D. Hayworth, Gingrich blasted President Obama for the “arrogance of the way he golfs.”
- Bryan Fischer declared to his radio audience that the sale of bacon is “proof” that “America is a Christian nation.”
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