I missed O'Reilly's take on this but I'm watching Hannity's.

"Hannity's Headline: Lost and Found."

Good stuff. LOL. Hannity calls it a "very stunning admission." He knows it isn't stunning.

Cool - we'll send you all those post-hoc speeding tickets, too.

There are MAJOR issues with enforceability etc.

I feel really bad for his wife. She's probably humiliated beyond belief. He said she's known for five months, but maybe she didn't tell him that...maybe she just got fed up with the media attention/embarrassment and told him once he returned. There are lots of women who don't tell their husbands they know about an affair, you know, and many do not divorce their husbands after an affair. If he did know she knew, they might have been going to counseling or trying to work on the marriage. I imagine she was probably devastated when she realized deep down that she did know where he had gone on Father's Day weekend, then to top it all off, the media came knocking on her door. Do you really expect her to "out" him on TV for all the world, and their kids, to see? To do so would likely mean an abrupt end to their marriage, and life as they know it, and maybe she just wasn't ready to make that decision so suddenly.

Please correct me if I'm wrong (especially since I'm at the world's slowest computer & research on it is a luxury), but wasn't there a case in South Carolina in the past ten years where a wife sued her husband's mistress for adultery? I'm fairly certain it was in SC or NC, and the wife won.

Frankly, I was expecting some sort of drug revelation, rather than a relationship.

Jenny Sanford has released this statement. It sounds like she's got a good head on her shoulders (I can't believe I'm saying that since I'm rarely a fan of giving cheaters a second chance). This part of her statement really stood out to me:

"When I found out about my husband's infidelity I worked immediately to first seek reconciliation through forgiveness, and then to work diligently to repair our marriage. We reached a point where I felt it was important to look my sons in the eyes and maintain my dignity, self-respect, and my basic sense of right and wrong. I therefore asked my husband to leave two weeks ago. This trial separation was agreed to with the goal of ultimately strengthening our marriage. During this short separation it was agreed that Mark would not contact us. I kept this separation quiet out of respect of his public office and reputation, and in hopes of keeping our children from just this type of public exposure. Because of this separation, I did not know where he was in the past week."


Like PeppyGPhiB, I feel bad for Jenny and her sons.

I'm not sure, it's a possibility and doesn't sound completely far-fetched. It would be a different issue than the SC criminal code provision (probably based on something like intentional infliction of emotional distress), but I'd bet that suits like that happen all over the country.

ETA: Kevin's the resident family law expert, though, so he would know more about this than I would.

For some reason I just think everyone is really overreacting. I saw some interviews the media did with constituents who were saying that he left them "unattended."

I feel like others who have said the man is entitled to vacation time. And I don't believe for one minute that no one knew where he was. I think key members of his staff and his wife knew exactly where he was. I just think they didn't feel the need to tell the media and understandably so. It's not like SC was in the middle of some crisis that required his immediate attention. It's not like terrorists were waiting to drop bombs on SC the minute he left the state. I don't care for his politics, but for goodness sake, I wish the media would stop blowing this out of proportion. Even the titles of the articles they wrote about the situation were misleading. When I first saw some of the titles I thought the man had vanished and there was some foul play. After reading the articles I realized that he simply went away on a vacation and didn't alert the media to his itinerary. :rolleyes:

As for the affair, I have long been of the mindset that those types of isseus are for the family to handle. I don't think politicians should always resign when they get caught having an affair because I think they can still do a good job in their elected office even if they don't handle their marriages well. And I would dare say that if fidelity is an unspoken requirement for politicians, then over half of the ones we have in office now would have to step down.

And the Constitution is the superior law. As KSigKid says, there is a very good chance that any state statute making adultery unconstitutional would not pass federal constitutional muster.

Besides, if I've got it all straight, the actual acts of adultery occured in Argentina, not in South Carolina, so any SC law would be irrelevant.

It was in NC, but it was for alienation of affection, not adultery.

Some states do allow a wife to sue the woman that has an affair with her husband. I believe NC still has such a law. I'm not sure about SC.

Even if SC has such a law, I suspect his wife probably would have no interest in suing this woman. Women like the First Lady of SC are satisfied as long as they have their money, power, prestige, and children. There would be no real justice (or point) in suing the mistress.

That's a weighty assumption.

She probably won't sue the other woman because it would be more trouble than it's worth. That may be more about torturing her children than being "satisfied" with money, power, prestige, and children.

Besides, there are tons of women who do not have money, power, and prestige but hold onto loser men.

The interesting thing about the press conference is that he talked about hurting the mistress before he mentioned hurting his wife and kids.

Bastard.

I can't remember ever thinking about this before, but why would adultery being illegal be unconstitutional?

I can understand how investigations of adultery could be but not the statute itself. Marriage has traditionally involved assumptions of fidelity. Marriage is a legal issue. . .

Are crimes for which there's likely to be uneven enforcement all suspect constitutionally?

FYI: I'm not emotionally invested in adultery being a crime; I'm just curious about it.

If adultery is illegal than other things that can cast a negative light on marriage should be illegal.

~ Emotional or physical neglect (being sued for something in a civil suit does not mean it is illegal)
~ Mismanagement of family money (economic troubles contribute greatly to divorce)
~ Allowing bratty kids to overshadow the marriage
~ etc.

When would the law stop meddling in family affairs and mind its own damn business?

I think the whole point of this 'reaction' is...if he went away and not told someone and something DID happen.

Suppose he did go and while travelling his plane crashed or he was killed etc and so forth while his staff had little or no clue as to where he was...how does that look upon them for not being able to account for his disappearance?

They are probably being criticized now just for this very idea.