Q. Dear Goddess: So, are you mad at Mark Sanford for his infidelity? –Jane
A. No, Jane, not as mad at him for that as I am for his raging hypocrisy. He’s been going on on and on about morality and the sanctity of marriage and family values for years. He was among the terminally self-righteous who voted to impeach President Clinton, calling the President’s act “reprehensible” and pushing him to resign. No surprise, is it, that for the same reprehensible act, he’s not racing to resign?. Listen to me: The self-righteous have a nasty little habit of doing precisely what they’d boil others in oil for doing–and always, always feeling entitled to be excused for it.
Beware, my darling earth girls, of men who preach. Who are “good” in the righteous sense and never let you forget it. Who are on the lookout for sinners everywhere, and who don’t include themselves in that lot, and who can’t wait to to punish them when found. I don’t care one whit about Sanford, but I care about keeping you away from self-appointed Saints: They’re inevitably the worst of the sinners….otherwise, why are they so preoccupied with sin?
They make you, as women, feel “bad” next to how “good” they like to pretend they are….until, of course, they betray you with their own badness. And then they accuse you of being unfair and unkind when you’re not inclined to honor their acts of betrayal with the kind of ready forgiveness they’d NEVER offer you.
Haven’t you ever wondered whether these self-righteous politicians would ever stand up for their wives if the situation were reversed? I always wonder this, as I’ve seen hundreds, no, thousands, of wives being trotted out to convey to the public their forgiveness of their straying spouses.
I’ve always suspected that Clinton would stand up for Hillary, were it to happen. I may be wrong, but I believe it because he never presented himself as a saint, and he never preached about goodness and family and abstinence-only sexual education, and so forth. But this man, Mark Sanford? With all his pompous drivel about old-fashioned values….you can bet he’d be the first to boil his wife (and certainly Hillary), were they unfaithful, in oil. And preach fidelity and goodness while he watched.
