THE BURNED OVER DISTRICT

It's OK If You Are a Republican. The phrase that describes one political parties seeming invulnerability from the consequences of all manner of wrong doing by members. The apparently bottomless well of forgiveness by Republicans and their running dog media can be awesome. And the current poster boy for this is Mark Sanford, International Man of Adultery and Violator of Court Orders, all in the name of his own selfish ends.

“Marshal Sanford, you’ve bought yourself a new suit!”

The notoriously skinflint Sanford, a man of considerable means who wore a sports coat with an open-neck shirt to his own gubernatorial inauguration ball, couldn’t help himself.

“Paid $129 for it,” he said.

For Mulvaney and other Sanford friends, the new suit is a small but telling sign that he’s been, as he claims, humbled by the spectacular fall he took from the edge of national political power thanks to a sexy Argentine mistress, a tearful confession to the extramarital affair on national television, and a claim in subsequent days that he’d met his “soul mate.”

Sanford, who noted several times in a recent interview that he’s the only former governor in the House, no longer insists on doing everything his way and only his way. The onetime loner now watches college football games on Saturdays with other lawmakers. In his hometown of Charleston, S.C., and in the surrounding 1st Congressional District, he lingers with constituents, trades small talk and shows interest in their families and their lives.

All this might not be newsworthy, save for one bizarre interlude in Sanford’s past: Five years ago, while serving as governor, he abruptly disappeared...

In just a few days, the odd case of the missing governor became a huge news story.

Finally, on June 24, 2009, Sanford resurfaced. Political reporter Gina Smith, acting on a tip that The State newspaper in Columbia, S.C., had received, was waiting for him at the Hartsfield-Jackson Atlanta International Airport when he got off a flight from Buenos Aires.

Sanford told Smith that he’d been in Argentina and, at a nationally televised news conference later that day, he admitted to the affair.

He resigned as the chairman of the Republican Governors Association _ a post many assumed he’d use as a steppingstone to a White House run _ but served out his term as governor into January 2011, despite calls for his resignation.

Disgraced and discredited, Sanford disappeared again; this time, most observers thought, for good. But again Sanford surprised everyone, joining Congress in May 2013 via a special election.

Need I say that Mark Sanford blames his political success of God. As usual, he has been “saved by my God”.

“The American people are forgiving people,” Davis told McClatchy. “They want true contrition and true atonement.”

None of that should be mistaken for a belief in and practice of the teachings of that socialist Jesus.