Posted on 07/03/2009 7:12:34 AM PDT by rhema
As the source of media spectacle and late-night jokes, South Carolina Gov. Mark Sanford has provided considerable distraction for the nation as his marital infidelity was made public.
Despite the intrigue, character still counts among Americans. The majority of Americans say he should resign, and they also disapprove of his adulterous behavior, according to new opinion polls.
A CNN-Opinion Research survey of 1,026 adults released Tuesday found that 54 percent of the respondents said Mr. Sanford should resign from office because of his brazen romantic affair with an Argentine woman, first revealed last week by a South Carolina newspaper - along with a spate of his e-mailed love letters to her.
Are political leaders required to show moral leadership as well? Yes, apparently.
About 50 percent also said that if a high-profile public official committed adultery, he or she lacked "the personal character and integrity to hold office."
That attitude has become more pronounced in recent years.
For comparison, an NBC-Wall Street Journal poll in 1999 found that 21 percent of Americans said an adulterous politician lacked character.
The knowledge of such activities is also a matter of public trust. Of those polled in the CNN survey, 51 percent agreed it was "important for voters to know" about politicians who were unfaithful to their spouses.
Americans clearly condemn such activities, according to Gallup Poll.
"Gov. Mark Sanford of South Carolina and Sen. John Ensign of Nevada - the latest elected officials to admit publicly to having extramarital affairs - are flying in the face of public opinion if they expect to find Americans condoning their dalliances," said Frank Newport, director of the Gallup Poll.
(Excerpt) Read more at washingtontimes.com ...
Would a Democrat resign?
Well, if he lied to his constituents and to the Grand Jury, he should.
Or was that someone else?
Now..it must be said that had the man been a Democrat and a President...and had he just simulated a sexual act with a tobacco product..and had the object of his desire been a government employee, rather than a mature exotic foreigner, and had he not written romantic poetic utterances to the strumpet........
Life is so predictable.
If he was a homosexual and had an affair with a lesbian ‘’she’’ had an adadick operation he would be considered protected by the definition of hate crime stature according to ohboomah’s attorney general and as such would not need to resign.
If everyone is asking for his resignation then I think Obama and his crew should go before him..Their offense will be the raping of America and its people..All of the democrat criminals should be in jail where they belong..but no it won't happen since they are the majority in Washington..With luck we the people will take the country back over and send these crooks back to their own states the ones that elected the criminals..
Yep and with a high five given to boot!
Morality is still in? When is Hussein going to resign, then?
In this case, it’s not about him; it’s about the majority of the country that, refreshingly and perhaps surprisingly, says he’s a reprobate who should take a hike.
Would the Pope renounce Catholicism?
Yep, yesterday the Minnesota Public Radio kept running the CBS news, Sanford spending time with his betrayed wife. Where was CBS when Hillary was the ‘betrayed wife’ Bill Clinton was spending time with?
A CNN Poll? Oh well then....what more can anyone say? And they polled “adults”, yet MORE proof that this is a wonderful indicator of popular opinion.....
If morals and integrity do indeed matter, then where’s the polls asking whether Barney, Dodd, the Kennedys, Pelosi, Conyers, Obama, Rahm, Daley, et al “should resign”?
More proof, mirabile dictu, that there must be overwhelming public condemnation of immorality if a CNN poll finds even 51 percent disapproval among its pollees.
Or not. It's remarkable that in this bread-and-circuses culture, those utterances haven't been collected and published: "The Love Poetry of William Jefferson Clinton"
So we (Christian conservatives) end up being just like the liberals. The difference being ... we know from the get go that liberals have no standards to live according to other than winning and getting their programs enacted.
For Christians to be believed ... it must be that they live according to their stated beliefs.
Tough assignment ... we all are tempted ... Christ in us is to keep us from submitting to the seduction away from our truths. WE ARE HELD TO A HIGHER STANDARD. All men have feet of clay.
I don't know how the poll was worded, but I find it very hard to believe that most of the people they asked want him to resign merely for the fact that he betrayed his wife.
I think it's far more likely that most people would like to see him to resign because he betrayed his wife and then carried on - and carried on, & carried on - like a whacked out drama queen about it, staging that bizarre "look at me, America!" disappearance from the Governor's office then slobbering incessantly like a drunken attention whore to the press about his 'soulmate'.
Ewwwww! Spare us any more of the icky TMI, already!
Had I been polled, I'd have said that I'd really rather not to have to listen to this man continue to gush to the world like a newly-deflowered fourteen year old about who he's been um, er... nailing lately, and would much prefer to see him do something about getting some of those loose screws in his head tightened instead, pronto.
Seriously, the people in his family who still love him need to get him in to undergo a full neural exam.
Something's just not right with that boy.
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