Those Darn Forgiving Democrats!

538 has this brief item on Mark Sanford's inability to find a woman in the United States to fuck. Interesting theory:

"The two big fish that have gone down on this issue in the past eighteen months, Eliot Spitzer and John Edwards, both seemed to be punished more sharply for their hypocracy and attempts at cover ups than for the scandals themselves. Ironically, both Spitzer and Edwards are Democrats, the party which theoretically could be more forgiving to this type of behavior.

Bottom line for Sanford: fess up, get back to work, and try not to look like a hypocrite, because that seems to be the thing that sinks people in the American voters' eyes the quickest."

In a word, wrong. I mean, not only that the writer spelled "hypocrisy" wrong, but two other errors of analysis stand out as well. First, the Democrats are not the "forgiving party," as anyone with eyes and ears will tell you. How forgiving are homos feeling today? How much "wait and see" charity is Obama receiving from those without healthcare, those with healthcare, labor, immigration advocates, and (again) those pesky too-loud-for-their-small-numbers gay people? None, virtually.

Now, sure, we're talking about infidelity under the original post, but I think there is a psychological condition here that is often overlooked by analysts who instead settle for the easy characterization of liberals as namby-pamby, weak-willed, and as a result amoral, "forgiving" people. Not so at all. Democrats and liberals, if you think about it, are some of the most vindictive, petty, and rigidly "moral" little assholes in the world.* I would give you Joe Lieberman, but he don't live here no more. Instead, I'll trust that you can think back to the election and all the posturing coming from all corners of the left, in which an endless stream of self-righteous blowhards attacked each other and the candidates without mercy, without reason, and as though they were fighting for Jerusalem itself. And you think these people forgive moral failings? What?

The other, lesser point here is this: people, voters, whatever, like Brad Penny on Joe Girardi, don't give two fucks about disgraced politicians "looking busy." They hate John Edwards because he has everything wrong with him: he seemed too good to be true and he was. He is from the South (still a handicap in the Democratic Party). He looks good? I guess? ...and liberals have a love/hate thing with good-looking people. And finally, he isn't bourgeois-messianic --he has actually met and, like, worked for poor people -- and that's what Democrats want these days; we're bascially split up into rabbinic cults and we're fighting over the orthodox interpretation of scripture. Obama was and is our flawed, middle class Jesus.

South Carolina Republicans are the only people who care about Mark Sanford (who, by the way, has to have the worst office staff in politics. Nice cover for the boss, guys. Clap. Clap.). My guess is that more of them are upset by his apparent need to fuck a 'furriner than the fact that he screwed around on his family on Father's Day.

*College professors, architects, and intellectuals most of all.