Men and women fail, often. It’s inherent to humankind. That is why the rule of law is so important.
That should be the take-away for each person who witnessed Gov. Mark Sanford of South Carolina admit last week to a tawdry and juvenile need to put self-fulfillment above all else.
He was a man who until recently commanded great respect. An Eagle Scout, he made a fortune in real estate in South Carolina and then turned to a life of public service. He promised to be a citizen-legislator and fulfilled that pledge, leaving Congress after three terms, unlike so many colleagues who crave the power available only to those who spend decades in Washington.
He not only decried government spending in campaigns, but voted against it in Congress even when it benefited his district. As governor, he hauled pigs to the floor of the statehouse to protest “pork” in the state budget. And he refused a $700 million of federal stimulus money headed to South Carolina until the state’s Supreme Court forced him to accept it.
He proclaimed his Christian faith and seemed to model it in his own marriage. To him, trust was paramount. In regards to President Bill Clinton’s infidelity, he said: “The issue of lying is probably the biggest harm, if you will, to the system of democratic government, representative government, because it undermines trust. And if you undermine trust in our system, you undermine everything.” And then this Eagle Scout, one who pledged: “To keep myself physically strong; mentally awake, and morally straight,” reneged on that promise and the one he made to his wife at the altar and to the people of South Carolina by abandoning them during his shrouded, weeklong trip to Argentina.
If he can fail so completely, along with so many other moral crusaders — including former New York Gov. Eliot Spitzer, former Sen. John Edwards, D-N.C., and Sen. John Ensign, R-Nev., what does that say about the rest of us floundering in moral purgatory from the day we were born?
More importantly, what does that say about President Barack Obama, a man of great moral vision for a green, healthy, poverty-free America that only allows safe investments? His weakness may not be for a woman with great tan lines and big eyes, as Sanford and others have described his mistress Maria Belen Chapur, or any other woman. But he is flawed like everyone else.
He’s the one who testily told reporters last week that “only I am the president of the United States.” He’s the one hastily pushing through a “public option” in health care and the one attempting to quash pollution at the same time; the one running General Motors through the Oval Office and rewriting the rules of Wall Street with lots of other smart people Americans are supposed to trust unequivocally. Isn’t it possible that his solution for one item on his agenda could fail? What if the public option turns into the only option for Americans despite his protests to the contrary? As noted above, Americans have already seen cracks in his trademark cool temperament.
And Americans already know that the government plan for General Motors failed. After borrowing $19.4 billion from taxpayers the company still collapsed and will get another $30 billion from the government to go through bankruptcy.
While Obama may be the embodiment of change for many Americans, that doesn’t make him infallible. And it certainly should not make him or his administration above the law. Given his high-speed push to remake America’s health and financial landscape and his financial team’s secret, strong-arm tactics with banks across the country, he needs a reminder.
And Americans need time to question his proposals and ability to handle so much so quickly. The question is not will he and his administration falter, but when and on which ideas.
That does not mean Americans should hope for his failure, just that they should view him clearly, as an imperfect man for whom the rule of law must also apply. Americans don’t need a savior as president. They need a man who does his best to guide a nation whose unimaginable economic success and unrivaled freedom are rooted in a Constitution ratified 221 years ago.
Examiner columnist Marta Mossburg is a senior fellow at the Maryland Public Policy Institute.
