In South Carolina, the new GOP motto appears to be: "Do as I say, not as I do"

"If you were desperate to hear more about S.C. Gov. Mark Sanford’s close relationship with the Almighty," reports fitsnews.com, "then today is your lucky day. Jesus’ homeboy -- who has spent the last week blowing your tax dollars on an 'image reclamation' tour –- actually stopped leaking dirt on his political opponents long enough Tuesday to sing another verse of 'Nearer, My God, To Thee.'”

by Ken

The South Carolina website FITS ("we are the most popular web site, like, ever"), which proudly proclaims itself "unfair and imbalanced" in pursuit of its "simple commitment to the truth and to keeping it real," goes on to highlight this gubernatorial pearl from an interview in today's Moonie Times, "Sanford, invoking Palin, vows to fight on":

I feel absolutely committed to the cause, to what God wanted me to do with my life. I have got this blessing of being engaged in a fight for liberty, which is constantly being threatened.

In the interview, Governor Sanford -- in addition to vowing not to resign (is it any wonder he draws inspiration from Alaska's vamoosed governor, Sarah "You Won't Have Sarah Palin to Kick Around Anymore" Palin?) -- declares himself puzzled by his lack of support among his GOP brethren. And that is pretty puzzling, isn't it? I myself have thought about it for whole seconds without being able to think why it might be that South Carolina Republicans have not lined up behind their fallen hero. Especially when he can explain what happened this simply:

"What happened is that you take your eye off the ball and have the moral failing that I did, and suddenly you are off the playing field. Then you realize how blessed you were to have been on that playing field."

There you go! He took his eye off the ball! Are you going to tell me that hasn't happened to you? And okay, he may have had a moral failing. Like that's never happened to any of us, a moral failing.

Believe it or not, for now it's not Governor Mark we're concerned with, or not principally -- though it's entirely possible that his name may come up again in a necessarily fairly crazed post scheduled for tomorrow, tentatively titled "Them Republican mens just wants to get jiggly . . . er, to have a good time."

No, the latest mess in the South Carolina muck concerns a woman named Kristin Maguire. FDL's watertiger did a bang-up covering the story yesterday in an FDL post called "Midnight in the Garden of Trash and Hypocrisy: South Carolina Gets Smuty Smuttier."

Ms. Maguire is a mother of four who has been home-schooling all those daughters. She has also been a member of South Carolina's State Board of Education since 2000, which predates Governor Mark's time, though our Mark did re-appoint her in 2004 and 2008. More importantly, since January of this year, having been elected by the board, she has been serving as its chairwoman. That's right, a home-schooling mama who gives evidence of having the usual wingnut phobia about the public schools has been overseeing them in her state.

The State reports today that Ms. Maguire is "one of the board’s most conservative members" and "co-founded a group that encourages abstinence-only education and the teaching of intelligent design in schools. She also is active in politics, serving on the state Republican Party’s executive committee." And indeed there were sourpusses critical of her elevation to chairwoman of the Board of Education, "critics who questioned whether a mother who chooses to home-school should oversee a board responsible for public elementary and secondary schools." The State adds that "she is the nation’s only home-schooler to head a public-school state board."

Or at any rate, she was, because Friday she sent a letter to the governor and her fellow board members announcing that she was quitting. By a curious quirk of timing, the letter, in which she cited a crushing burden of family responsibilities, toward both her children and her parents, wasn't made public until yesterday, following another, er, development, one that goes unmentioned in The State's report of her resignation today, but somehow seems more than coincidentally related.

None other than fitsnews.com published a post suggesting that she is "the prolific author of hardcore erotic fiction on the Internet, according to documents provided to the governor’s office earlier this summer and later obtained by FITS." The case is laid out in considerable detail, and then: "Confronted with these numerous identifying markers, Maguire spoke to FITS of difficult times in her life and acknowledged that she had visited certain websites where such material was posted and reviewed. She did not admit to authoring erotic fiction, however."

The FITS blogger(s), self-identified as "hard core fiscal conservatives" and "on social issues . . . primarily libertarians," notes, "A source familiar with Sanford’s response to receiving this information . . . says that Maguire emphatically denied that the writing samples were hers."

Now I don't begrudge right-wing doodyheads the right to believe in their superstitions, though I waver when it comes to the right to indoctrinate their innocent offspring into brain-dead doodyhead clones. Children really ought to have the right to learn about the real world.

I have no hesitation, however, in drawing a line when it comes to these people's insatiable compulsion to force the rest of the world into worshipping their doodyhead mumbo-jumbo. Somehow these people have gotten the idea, which would be hilarious if it wasn't such a crock, and if their insistence on it didn't cause so much mayhem, that they are moral people. Quite likely some of them are, though that has very little to do with their adherence to doodyheadism. But spouting their mumbo-jumbo doesn't make them one whit more moral than anybody who laughs at it.

Where the whole exercise becomes intolerable is their delusion that people who don't swallow their doody are somehow deficient in morality. Again, quite likely some are, but again, this has nothing to do with their rejection of doodyheadism. The attempt to impose doodyhead beliefs on people who don't want them is just plain authoritarianism. I'm sorry, no, they do not have that right.

I would actually feel better about Ms. Maguire if she is indeed the online temptress. It would show some sign of humanity, and at least the possibility of a shred of mental health. Sorry, doodyheads, sexual impulses are normal for humans. People who wish to pretend otherwise are free to practice their own beliefs, however deluded and dehumanized. But their attempt to enforce their delusions on other people -- is sick and revolting and ought not to be allowed in a civilized republic.

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UPDATE: I Doubt Mike Rogers or Howie Klein Are Working With Mark Sanford But...

In the swampland of South Carolina Republican Party politics, it's getting harder to tell which way is up. John Knotts (R-Lexington) accused Sanford and his allies of being behind the outing of gay blade Andre Bauer, the Lt Gov. who will take over when Sanford is impeached. I was the first one to out him online-- and Sanford didn't give me a dime. If Sanford just forgot and would like to thank me, he can donate to the Blue America page seeking to thank stalwart Democrats who are standing firm for the public option. (I don't personally take donations from right-wing sociopaths.)

In a letter to South Carolina legislators, a prominent state senator Thursday said Gov. Mark Sanford’s supporters were behind recent Internet rumors that Lt. Gov. Andre Bauer is gay. And he encouraged the General Assembly to remove the disgraced governor immediately.

“During the last two months, we have discovered plenty of solid reasons to remove our current governor from office; but now there’s one more reason: the people trying to keep Sanford in power have stooped to a new low with this week’s false character assassination of Bauer,” Knotts wrote.

A national blogger wrote Monday that Bauer is secretly gay and that multiple male sources had confirmed having sexual relations with the lieutenant governor.

Knotts said individuals close to Sanford were behind the attacks, which he said were “100 percent false.”

“As a former target of a false rumor started by the Sanford Camp I can tell you with absolute certainty this attack was orchestrated on behalf of Mark Sanford, either directly or indirectly, and financially subsidized by him or one of his many ‘front-groups,’” Knotts wrote.

Knotts noted that he was the subject of similar Sanford-backed smears when “a former Sanford employee and political consultant made a totally false claim about me, designed only to damage my character and reputation and embarrass my family.”

-Howie