No vacation from the news

    It is hot and humid in coastal South Carolina where our family has come for summer vacation.  The golf courses are virtually empty and cheap, as in $55 for a round on a couple of dozen excellent layouts, cart included.  My wife and daughter have their eyes on the beach, my son and I on the golf courses, and after just a couple of days, we all feel the stress leaving our bodies.
    But there is one thing we haven’t escaped -– Mark Sanford, the wandering governor of our adopted state.  The Myrtle Beach Sun News, whose front pages are typically filled this time of year with tourism-related stories, has mentioned the Appalachian Trail the last few weeks as much as written about the Grand Strand.  Unless you have been deprived of all Internet, newspaper, and television access in the last week, you know that the governor told his staff he was headed for a few contemplative days walking the Trail, only to admit later, under duress by the news media waiting for him at Atlanta Airport, that he had been in Argentina with his mistress over Father’s Day weekend (the governor is father to four boys and husband to the state’s first lady).  Since then the guv, who either lacks decent PR people or doesn’t listen to their advice, has put his foot in his mouth every time he opens it, which has been way too often.  The first rule of public relations is to shorten the story as much as possible; this one just goes on and on in the papers and on the local TV news stations.
    According to my neighbor in Pawleys Island, a full-time resident of the state, Governor Sanford had been a fairly good golfer early in his political career, certainly fitting in a state that depends so heavily on golf tourism.  I wonder if he cheated at golf.  There may be a natural connection between cheating at the game and treating cavalierly the women in your life.  We have only to look back to William Jefferson Clinton, who notoriously dropped a few extra balls in the rough during friendly matches, for the archetypal example of cheater at the games of golf and relationships.  Or the James Bond character Goldfinger who blatantly cheated at golf and painted his women to death, in gold leaf.
    During Clinton’s troubles over the Lewinsky affair, then Congressman Sanford called for the President to resign, saying Clinton lacked “moral clarity.”  Many South Carolinians are willing to forgive the governor his lapse of fidelity and are pulling for him to repair his marriage.  But his hypocrisy – preach one thing, do another – is a different story.  Within a few days or months, a suddenly ex-Governor Sanford may have to practice what he preached during the Clinton impeachment hearings.  He may soon have a lot of time to recapture his golf skills.