Wednesday, June 24, 2009

This is weird: S.C. governor says he was in Argentina

First he was incommunicado, then he was hiking the Appalachian trail, now he was in Argentina. When pressed for what he was doing there it is reported that the answer given was driving along the coast. I'm all for vacations as much as the next guy, but when you are the governor of a state, your staff should probably know where you are in case you have to, you know, govern. As you can see from the map, that's a lot of coastline to drive.

Update
: CNN is now reporting that "S.C. Gov. Mark Sanford -- after days when his whereabouts were unknown -- says he has been unfaithful to his wife."

Okay. So it wasn't the Malbec.

4 comments:

Robert99 said...

If the guy wants to get away and isn't stiffing the people of SC for air fare or expenses, what is the problem? I doubt that anything happened in the 4 days he was gone. Contrast this with Schwarzenegger. The people of Calif. would probably wish that he took a long one way vacation to Argentinz.

T. T. Douglas said...

I agree, and having been to Argentina many times, I must say he couldn't have picked a better place. I guess it was more the incommunicado thing.

The guy has kids and was absent during Father's day without his wife or children knowing where he was, not to mention the chain of command in the governance of his state.

That said, I hope he at least sampled some excellent Argentinian Malbec while he was there.

Anonymous said...

Robert - the vacation isn't the problem, let him go to Taiwan, Tahiti, or go hike the Himalayas, no one would care.

All he has to do is before he leaves say: "I will be gone from this date to that date, my Lt. Gov is in charge while I am gone, but if an emergency comes up call me at this number. Bye!"

It doesn't take that much and it is common practice. Think about this way - whether you are a high level white collared worker or a fry chef at McDonald's if you just didn't show up for work one day, no one knew where you had gone, when you were coming back or how to get a hold of you - by the time you did waltz back into the office you would most likely no longer have a job.

He is such an idiot – all he had to do was say he was going on vacation (he didn’t even have to tell us where), when he will be back and who was in charge while he was gone. It is really very simple.

[I would note however that going to Argentina right now is weird – remember, southern hemisphere, it is winter there right now, the current temp in Buenos Aires is between 40F to 50F – seems like a strange time to go.]

T. T. Douglas said...

Good points all Anonymous. Just tell us where you will be as any person in a position of responsibility should. And I must confess, it had slipped my mind that they are in their winter now.