Ross Douthat takes a very sour tone with regard to Mark Sanford’s election as a congressman from South Carolina after, among other things, taking French, so to speak. leave from SC to visit his South American sweetie, at public expense. Ross quotes Jonah Goldberg as saying, yes, it’s terrible when politicians do these things, naming, of course, examples of Democratic hankey-pankey, but, since the public doesn’t seem to mind, what can you do?
Ross, parsing closely his heart’s intensity, replies that “I rather strongly disagree” and goes to say that Mark’s continued sappiness—claiming somehow that cheating on his wife and lying to the public has allowed him to experience the grace of God (plus, one assumes, some fantastic blow jobs)—deserves a serious rebuke, and not mere shoulder-shrugging.
Well, I have a solution for Ross. If you remember, back in 1995 the Republican House of Representatives voted to impeach President Clinton for, basically, lying about his sex life. According to the U.S. Constitution, the House, which is still in Republican hands, “shall be the Judge of the Elections, Returns and Qualifications of its own Members.” Which means that the House has plenary and unreviewable power to refuse to seat Sanford. Why not propose a vote on that?
Afterwords
I will praise Ross without sarcasm for persistently pointing out to Republicans that they ought not to want simply to repeal ObamaCare but to replace it, with a conservative program that will, by Ross’s lights, provide superior medical care to the poor. I applaud Ross on this point, but I will also suggest to him that the Party isn’t listening because they don’t want to provide any medical care to the poor.
