Why is Mark Sanford now begging for a bailout?
Sanford is publicly grovelling “with a humble heart” and “a contrite spirit.” He has announced that God is now working to change him from the weird, filandering, nut job that he was, to … something better than that I guess. What Sanford has so far become in this process is a pathetic, blubbering, infantile embarrassment.
Sanford is firmly in the camp of contemporary evangelicalism, with their histrionic and bathos-soaked redemption rituals. Thus, this 47-yr. old, uber-successful, highly powerful, multi-millionaire father of four thinks nothing of weeping and pleading in public, provided he peppers his teary expressions with all the vocabulary of melodramatic Christian self-healing. In fact, his appearances and correspondence are demeaning to his status as a husband, father, and man. He summons his religious mentors and emerges from the resulting assembly spouting Scripture. He issues stream-of-consciousness public updates on the state of his heart, his marriage, his heart, his job a