Mark Sanford - A Lesson of Hypocrisy

On a basic human level, I have sympathy and even empathy for Mark Sanford. It is fully understandable for human beings to fall in love and to act upon their feelings. That is human nature. And my respects go out to his wife and children. However, Mark Sanford has made a career promoting the sanctity of marriage and family values. He has highly criticized and called for the impeachment of other politicians for similar indiscretions-President Clinton. Now he has found himself guilty of the same indiscretion and thus has become a hypocrite.

Hypocrisy, I feel is too often dismissed, when in fact we should feel shame for our hypocrisy. If “Thou shalt not judge” is one of the ten commandments, and hypocrisy is judgment and then committing the same indiscretion-well then you could imagine the “sin” for lack of better word. But I see hypocrisy is running amuck these days with lying, excuses, blaming and denials. If we cannot be in control of our own behavior how is it possible to judge another?

But hypocrisy is not just in family values, we judge others in every facet of our lives. Over the weekend, I read comments about the economy criticizing the “President Obama and the intellectual elites” for standing up for “stupid people.” Figure that one out. Yes, folks were snubbing legislation to make financial fine print easier to understand. I believe that to be elitism and hypocrisy.

What does it say for a nation of hypocrites? What does it say about us when all we can do is judge and criticize one another and even more detrimental anonymously through the internet? Yes, it is easier to be judgment and criticize when people do not know your true identity. It’s not only easy, it’s cowardly. The danger in judgment and criticism is you never know when one day you may be faced with adversity, the same adversity you once judged another. I see so many judging the unemployed (during a recession no less), but what happens when these same people lose their jobs? Be careful.

As Mark Sanford said, “He is a bottom line kinda guy,” and I guess I’m a bottom line kinda gal. Here is my bottom line-acceptance and tolerance. I could accept and tolerate Mark Sanford’s infidelity, but the real issue here is that he failed in his oath of governor of the state of South Carolina, when he left without telling anyone where he was going. It is a question of irresponsibility, not infidelity. He is the governor of a state for crying out loud! And when you place yourself in the public eye, whether it be a celebrity, professional athlete, rockstar or politician-different rules apply.

Look, we are all human. We all at times in our live faced adversity. It’s not our indiscretions we should be judged upon it is how we deal with our indiscretions. It is more irreprehensible if we lie, blame, point fingers, rant and rave than if we are honest and accept our shortcomings. We all have them. We should learn the lesson of not only accepting the shortcomings of others, but ourselves.