(information obtained from the Associated Press is used in the following article)

I don’t mean to jump on any bandwagons full of pitchfork wielding “liberals” giving each other head and smoking marijuana in between bouts of screaming at the top of their lungs for Mark Sanford’s head on a platter.

All the seats on that bus are taken, anyway.  Shame, because it looks like a damn good time.

What I would simply like to point out, to any right-leaning people who may read this piece, is that yet another of the supposed shining lights of the GOP has been taken down in a sex scandal so brazen Bill Clinton responded to the news of Sanford’s tryst in Argentina with a dumbfounded, “Really?  Jesus Christ, man.”

To bring those of you not in the know up to speed:

South Carolina governor Mark Sanford, one of the rising stars of the Republican Party (he vowed to refuse any Obama stimulus funds for his state on “moral grounds” before being order to accept them by the legislature), went AWOL from South Carolina’s Capitol Hill last week for seven days.  He was gone over the Father’s Day weekend, supposedly hiking the Appalachian Trail, albeit without any of his four sons or his wife.

As it turns out, dude was down in ARGENTINA having an affair with a “dear, dear friend” of his.  He’d been involved romantically with this woman for over a year, to the point that his wife kicked his ass out two weeks ago and began the process of filing for a trial separation.  Sanford used his work e-mail to send this other woman steamy messages, remarking on her “ability to give magnificent gentle kisses,” her “tan lines…the curve of [her] hips,” and “the erotic beauty of [her] holding [herself] (or two magnificent parts of [herself]).”

The reason I can quote those e-mails is because THEY WERE MADE USING HIS WORK COMPUTER and were published online Wednesday by The State newspaper.

Sanford said he would resign his position as head of the Republican Governors Association, but remained mum on whether he would do so from the South Carolina Governor’s post itself.  One figures (hopes?) his standing as a hopeful for the GOP Presidential nomination in 2012 is all but finished.  Please keep in mind that, as a Congressman, this son of a bitch voted in favor of three of the four articles of impeachment brought against former President Clinton, citing a need for “moral legitimacy” in our leaders.

Way to go, buddy. 

In Sanford’s defense, he wasn’t the first Republican this week to fess up to sexual impropriety.  That honor belonged to Sen. John Ensign of Nevada, who had an affair with a campaign staffer and vowed to resign from the GOP leadership.  To Ensign’s credit, he did not have to fly to SOUTH AMERICA to indulge his appetite for strange.  He understood there are perfectly good mistresses in his own backyard.  In his own campaign!

No politician is bulletproof.  Never has been one in the history of American politics.  Someone knew somebody he shouldn’t have or took some money she shouldn’t have or put his penis in a place it didn’t belong or went somewhere she shouldn’t have with a man not her husband.  It’s a dirty business: always has been, always will be, not for the faint of heart nor those who wish to emphasize their pious nature.

It’s a business best suited to scumbags and lowlifes who will tell people what they want to hear in order to find themselves in a position to exercise an extreme amount of power over people who willingly chose to put them there.  I imagine there’s few thrills greater than using public funds to fly to Argentina to rendezvous with an erotic, tan beauty full of sweet kisses who holds her boobies in your face and convinces you there is some deep connection you two share down to each other’s souls while the wife who made you who you are files papers calling you out as a philanderer Father’s Day weekend but keeps mum to the press about the whole thing. 

That is, until Sanford stepped off the plane, was mobbed by reporters, and had to tearfully confess to having to fly all the way down to Argentina to get his dick wet.  That part was probably not so awesome.

The GOP story in the new millennium gets more and more tawdry by the day.  One figured that the party of the homos and the dope-smoking hippies would be the one full of people engaged in sexual misconduct, but lo and behold those bearers of the cross for “family values” and “moral legitimacy” in the GOP are the parents of single teenage mothers and older gentlemen who become prime candidates for experimental herpes treatments as their glory years approach.  And this is long after Larry Craig took his wide stance and Mark Foley hit on his male assistants.

Which is not to say the GOP is the dregs of society, or that the Democrats are the holier than thou ones in this whole deal who will provide the new shining example of how to be righteously political in the 21^st century. 

It does, however, mean that everyone can cut the bullshit.  Politicians are people just like anybody else, except more ruthless and more inclined to believe their own grand delusions.  Let’s remove the politics of piety from the game altogether and get back to talking about important things, like how the hell we’re going to get this health care system in order, what we’re going to do with all these angry Arabs, and exactly how and when will I be able to cash in this GM stock I’m getting.

Actually, let’s take one final moment to soak up the audacity of this lying piece of crap flying to Argentina Father’s Day weekend to get laid without telling anyone or being able to be contacted by any member of his staff.  Soak it in.

Okay, now back to work, you bunch of liars and cheats.