Department Of Homeland Security Worried About Mark Sanford’s Disappearance
South Carolina’s Charleston Post and Courier has posted online some 570 pages of internal emails out of Mark Sanford’s office that were obtained through a FOIA request, and here’s an amusing postcript:
It appears the Department of Homeland Security raised concerns internally about his disappearance, suggesting the possibility that the Feds may have worried that Sanford’s MIA status signaled a national security threat. This underscores yet again the irresponsibility of his vanishing act.
On page 523 of the emails, you find an email chain involving a DHS official and Sanford’s aides. A DHS media monitoring official, Margaret Luther, emailed DHS employees a copy of a State article about his disappearance, with an amusingly clinical subject line:
South Carolina Governor Whereabouts Unknown
That email was forwarded to Sanford’s Washington office, and the expression of concern from DHS prompted a bit of joking among Sanford’s aides, with one emailing another:
DHS is worried about the governor (in an unofficial way). Big Brother is watching.
It’s just yet another way that Sanford’s goofball disappearance taxed us all, even consuming Federal resources, in however limited a way. Thanks to our reporter, Beth Marlowe, for the catch.
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Wait a minute. Weren’t you arguing that Palin was full of carp when she claimed that the people of Alaska were being shortchanged because state attorneys were spending time defending her from ridiculous ethics ’scandals?’ Didn’t you claim that if not for the ethics charges they would have been doing some other work anyway so it was no big deal?
And since this story broke, our vacuous MSM has instead decided to focus on the more lurid details instead of on the more serious and troubling aspects: the guy left the state, left no one in charge, and ignored 15 different attempts by his staff to contact him. Why does he still have a job?
nice try, sbj. I took issue with Palin’s specific claim that that money would have gone to cops, schools, and fish research. No parallel here at all.
@greg: Thanks!
But, of course, you would now have to agree that the frivolous charges taxed all Alaskans, consuming state resources?
sbj: immaterial. I was talking specifically about Palin’s claim.
WHATEVER sbj – you are sooo transparent…good lord, only you would figure out a way to take issue with this…even Republican/Conservative leaders in his own state are asking for investigations into his actions…not to mention his “fiscally responsible” first class tickets on the taxpayers dime – you know that when you take issue with every single thing you lose credibility, kind of like almost all of the Republicans taking issue with every single thing the President is doing, but offering no new solutions (tax cuts aren’t new solutions) to problems that have weighed on our Country for decades…they just want to kick the can, as usual…too funny on you taking issue on this one
@greg: Immaterial? What are we, in a courtroom?
You just can’t bring yourself to admit that defending from silly ethics charges was a waste of that state’s resources, can you? Palin may have made her point in a clumsy way (as she tends to do) but that’s certainly what I took from the whole episode. “I’m a lightning rod for ridiculous charges – charges that waste state resources.”
@JennD: Please. I think Sanford should resign.
I took “issue” with Greg’s framing – it seemed to me that he applied a double standard. He disagrees and his defense is on very narrow grounds. I think it’s a bit disingenuous because he seems (to me) to ignore the larger point the woman made.
sbj, I’m not sure she was being “clumsy.” She was very deliberately embellishing in a highly dishonest way to portray herself as a heroic defender of the taxpayers. Did the complaints distract from other legal work? Yes, but that doesn’t change the fact that she wildly exaggerated (to put it charitably)
By the way Greg – what in the world goes on at this C Street place in DC??? These “Christian Conservatives” that uphold all the moral platitudes on “traditional values” and reside at this place…and they are just falling off the moral high horse like leaves off of a tree…now there is a 3rd Republican guy that has had an affair and sought “counsel” there….what in the world kind of counsel? For people that are so up to speed on their Biblical quotes, they sure do need lots of “counsel”…I think that the one on being faithful to your spouse is pretty straightforward, no need to “dig deep” into the Scripture to find that one…
@Greg. Well fine then – I believe we [mostly] agree!
You’re a great sport, Greg. How about enlightening us on what it is like to live in your new digs? Any good restaurants? Characters talking to themselves on the corner?
@JennD: “I think there’s a few other lines that are pretty easy to find. That one about Thou shall not judge, for starters. There’s another about He who is without sin casting stones and such.
Umm sbj, you should really do some research on Palin…this is totally her MO…she never takes responsibility for anything…everything that happens to her is everyone elses fault, like when she quit the Oil and Gas Commission because of those “big, bad ethically challenged board members” that she was serving with, but yet she forgot to mention (publically at least) that she was about to be overruled on some of her initiatives by fellow members…Palin is a classic Republican, she only wants to talk with or work with people that agree with her.
sbj~ The difference between me (who sins early and often) and them is that I DON’T judge others, while they continuosly judge others and lecture others about what the proper “family values” are…I do not judge or lecture others about their values or their families, but they, on the other hand have made a national political platform out of it…so take your argument on this one and move on down the road…when “Christian Conservative” Republicans stop running on “family/traditional values” then I will stop pointing out their godforesaken hypocritical rhetoric!!
@JennD: I think that you and I must have completely different definitions of what judging means.
That’s pretty obvious. And what exactly would you call all of the Republican elected officials that come out in droves to call on Democratic elected officials to resign when they get “caught with their pants down” (couldn’t help it) – If Sanford and Ensign and Vetter and Craig and Gingrich and all the other GOPers that have strayed were Democrats, the Republicans would be holding daily press conferences demanding that they resign from their offices! At least Spitzer and McGreevy resigned…but oh no, not the Republican guys (exception Foley & underaged pages), they just cannot resign because they simply have much to much to offer the rest of us sinners.
“Hypocrisy negates ones beliefs”
@JennD: You seem to have an unhealthy preoccupation with the *** lives of politicians.
I don’t particularly care if a politician has some perverse/immoral/whatever *** that doesn’t interfere with his job. In fact, I don’t want to know about it. Unlike you, I’d rather not judge the morality of others. When their actions costs me money, or when it interferes with their public duties, or when they lie about it in civil court, then I feel they should resign or be censured. Otherwise I would leave it up to the voters.
No, actually I have an unhealthy preoccupation with hypocrisy. And I would only hope that Republican politicians that ram “traditional family values” down the throats of the citizens of this Country would begin to listen to your advice, because you may not care about the *** lives of politicians, but the majority of the Republican politicians make “federal cases” out of other peoples *** lives. Here’s hoping they begin to listen to your advice about keeping their nose out of everyone elses bedroom.
@JennD: I think some of your comments here would make pretty good definitions for “hypocrisy.”
You’ve got to understand that it is not hypocrisy to strive to do the right thing and then fail. That’s what we all do. OTOH, I think practically all politicians are hypocrites in one way or another – the Repubs certainly don’t hold a monopoly on that!
You know what, if you want to keep going on this one, that is fine with me, because as usual you are trying to excuse and deflect the hypocrisy of Republican elected officials back onto ME. I am not the one that runs campaign ads tauting “traditional family values” while I am ******** around on my wife and I am not the one calling on other politicians that have faltered to resign while I am ******** around on my wife. You state that it is not hypocrisy to strive to do the right thing and then fail and you are exactly right…, but it is hypocrisy to create a political platform tauting “traditional family values” while at the very same time you are ******** around on your wife! Ensign was a Promise Keeper for godsake, Sanford literally cut campaign ads about he being the one who stands up for “traditional family values”…good lord, you don’t even have the ability to acknowledge that, you are simply trying to deflect the hypocrisy of these Republican elected officials back onto ME, which chase your tail if you must, but I have never screwed around on my husband and I have never run campaign ads tauting myself as the example of “traditional family values” and I certainly have never preached to anyone about how they should live and what their family values should look like. It is unfortunate, but typical, that you would deflect away from this issue by trying to turn it around on me, instead of placing the blame at the Republican leaders that are behaving in this manner. And I think we can all agree that no one has a monopoly on hypocrisy, but only one political party in the Country claims to have the monopoly on “traditional family values”.
Is there anyone who makes less sense than SBJ? Seriously. He’s the one who can’t bring himself to admit that it was his very own Republican Party that brought about the need for an economic stimulus bill in the first place. He also can’t bring himself to admit it was 8 years of conservative Republican rule that created the world we live in today. And now he wants GS to admit to something that is totally apples and oranges to what GS was talking about. This is borderline psycho.
Well, Chris, that is one heck of a comment – “na na na na na na – sbj is a psycho!” Hold on a minute and let me write that one down so I don’t forget how to put someone in their place.
And SBJ hijacks another thread.
I will return it for . . . one million dollars!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9Q_ZzUqehbc&feature=related