“OPPOSE IT, NOT HELP IT”
by Bob Russell, ©2013, blogging at Conservative Daily News
(May 9, 2013) — I received this message in an e-mail from The TEA Party Express and was appalled at what I read.
First Tea Party Victory of the 2014 Cycle
Tea Party Express, the nation’s largest Tea Party political action committee, congratulates Mark Sanford on his election victory tonight.
Sanford, a Republican, defeated Democrat Elizabeth Colbert Busch by a 54 percent to 45 percent margin in the 1st Congressional District race to replace Tim Scott.
Thanks to your commitment to elect fiscal conservatives and your generous support, Mark Sanford was victorious in defeating liberal Democrat Elizabeth Colbert Busch in yesterday’s special election
Yesterday, a grassroots issue-based campaign upset the national Democratic campaign machine. Voters saw past the personal attacks and elected a Tea Party candidate who is willing to stand up for fiscal responsibility and limited government. Mark Sanford was once rated number one by the National Taxpayers’ Union for his efforts to reduce spending and the national debt, and we are confident that he will bring that same conservative leadership back to Washington, D.C.
The Tea Party movement continues to fuel election upsets, while political talking heads continue to try and reject the strength of our message. With $17 trillion in debt, the Obamacare train wreck, and anemic economic growth, Americans are looking to elect leaders that are willing to swim against the current. Mark Sanford’s proven record of standing up for the taxpayer and reducing the size, cost, and intrusiveness of the federal government represent the conservative qualities voters are looking for in candidates.
This is both a victory for Mark Sanford and Tea Party grassroots activists in South Carolina’s first Congressional District. We are now looking to carry this momentum into the 2014 election cycle.
I thought this sounded odd and did some checking to make sure my instinct was on target. This is the same Mark Sanford who, as governor of South Carolina, essentially embezzled money from the taxpayers of his state to carry on an illicit affair with some Argentinian beauty. The fact that she is young enough to be his daughter is beside the point.
Sanford intentionally used state assets to travel to South America to carry on this affair. Regardless of how this is spun, he stole from WE the People. He paid a fine and reimbursed the state to buy off an ethics investigation, but only did so after getting caught and to just make it all go away. Oh, he apologized in his best Jimmy Swaggart “Ah have sinnnnnned!!!” song and dance tear party, paid a fine, reimbursed the state for PART of the money and all of a sudden everything is fine. NO, everything isn’t fine!!!!!!
I especially like the sentence about Sanford “standing up for the taxpayer and reducing the size, cost, and intrusiveness of the federal government.” The man is an adulterer who embezzled public funds to carry on the affair and only when he got caught did he “do the right thing.” Included in the message was a picture of Amy Kremer and Sanford.
I have a question for Ms. Kremer and the others who are so high on Sanford. What the heck are you people thinking????? Just who and what are you representing??? Isn’t embezzlement a crime?? I thought it was a felony. Shouldn’t that disqualify Sanford from public office??? This man has trampled on every value I thought the TEA Party stands for. I would like to hear Amy Kremer’s definitions of honesty, integrity, and morality.
The question of forgiving him for having an affair isn’t my business; that is for his wife and children to deal with. To forgive him for stealing funds from hard-working taxpayers to fund such a thing is fine also, to a point, after punishment for his crime. I have no problem forgiving him for bad judgment but see no reason to put him right back into a position of trust and honor instead of a prison cell where I would be if I had stolen the same money. I wonder of Sanford’s wife trusts him as much as Amy Kremer does.
I saw a comment on one of the social network sites I belong to that if I am looking for a saint to run then to name one and the poster would support him/her. A SAINT?????? Mark Sanford is a far cry from a saint. This old worn-out intimidation tactic of “he who is without sin cast the first stone” from supposed Christian conservatives in the Republican Party is as lame as the race card from the liberals. The man committed a crime against the trust of We the People. He used the public treasury as his personal piggy bank. No, Sanford is not anywhere near sainthood!!!
Do we no longer stand behind the values we claim to live by when it becomes politically expedient to throw them by the wayside? So, “Mark Sanford is not as bad as his opponent” is the standard we are looking for now??? We should forgive him for all of his “bad decisions,” promote him, and give him our trust again??? I don’t think so!!!
Isn’t irrelevance and forgiveness the ploy the Democrat Party is doing right now in the Benghazi hearings circus, and formerly in the Fast & Furious “investigation”? Isn’t this the same rhetoric we got about Clinton and Lewinsky?? Isn’t this the same rhetoric we got on the Charles Rangel tax evasion, the Tim Geithner tax evasion???? Isn’t this the same attitude that we saw over the Ted Kennedy Chappaquiddick incident???? Bless his heart; he said he was sorry, awwwwwwwwwww!!!!!
The TEA Party Express group, self-touted as being the largest of all the TEA groups, has now apparently bought into the ruling class political establishment attitude that “he might be a criminal but he is our criminal.” Are we no better than the Democrats; people who will do anything, tell any lie, break any law, destroy any moral value, cheat on anything that helps their cause??
How is our nation to return to our founding principles if those of us looking to get there throw those very principles away like this? Is defeating Democrats, who are a virtual mirror of the Republican establishment, so important that we will vote for an embezzler and adulterer because he “isn’t quite as bad” as the Democrat candidate? Oh, he cried and said he was sorry!!! Really???? Is this the best America can do??
I can’t go along with this surrender of values. If I toss everything that is important to me in the trash can to win an election what have I won? How would I have made this nation better by voting for a person as “flawed” as Sanford? He can’t apologize enough, can’t pay enough fines, and can’t promise enough for me to accept that he should not be in prison for his crime of embezzlement instead of sitting in the seat of government. He should never be allowed to hold any public office, EVER!!!!
If this is the standard now upheld by the majority of WE the People, I have little hope for ever getting back to the honor and prestige America once held. We cannot restore America as “a shining city on a hill” by continually lowering our standards to keep just ahead of those who are joyfully descending into hell. If a man who has no better moral and ethical standards than Mark Sanford is the standard-bearer for the TEA Party Express and the conservative movement in America then our nation is lost. This is like jumping on the back of the bus and trying to claw our way to the front while the bus careens over the cliff of destruction. We cannot stop a perpetual slide into an abyss of partisan political games, and the loss of all moral political standards, by jumping on the back of the bus. Our only hope to stop the slide is to oppose it, not help it.
http://www.cnn.com/2009/POLITICS/06/24/south.carolina.governor/index.html?_s=PM:POLITICS
http://thecaucus.blogs.nytimes.com/2009/06/25/sanford-to-reimburse-his-state-for-commerce-trip/
I submit this in the name of the Most Holy Trinity, in faith, with the responsibility given to me by Almighty God to honor His work and not let it die from neglect.