Still-Gov. Mark Sanford released his schedule for the week today. There were no public events on it.
"Under the circumstances, the governor clearly understands the need to be more transparent about his schedule then what he has done in the past or then what is required by law," [spokesman Joel] Sawyer said in a written statement. "You can expect that he will do so."
And boy-oh-boy is he being transparent about the precise schedule on which he's doing nothing for the citizens of South Carolina this week. Unlike that other week he recently spend doing nothing for the citizen of South Carolina. (He later accounted for the time with the whole "crying in Argentina" explanation.) That's one lesson learned and deployed too little and too late.
Still, Sanford's staff also seems to have missed the point a bit, if this statement from former Republican gubernatorial spokesman Gary Karr is any clue:
"The Internet has changed everything,"…"There's much more of an expectation of what you're doing and why you're doing it.
The lesson here isn't: Hey, got to watch out for those wacky, inquisitive Internets. Total disclosure Sanford's activities wouldn't have helped matters much. The schedule would have looked like this:
Day 1: Argentina. Cry.
Day 2: Argentina. Cry.
Day 3: Argentina. Cry.
Day 4: Argentina. Cry.
Scandal fallout probably would have happened anyway. So, two separate lessons: 1) Transparency and 2) No Argentinian mistress. The latter is probably more important.
