It was pure serendipity. We were making the long drive from Greenville to Laura’s sister’s house in Florida, and I had downloaded several podcasts from NPR’s This American Life to listen to along the way. At random I selected the episode “Leaving the Fold”, and was treated to a story that has many parallels with the story of Gov. Mark Sanford’s fall from grace.
The first part of the episode tells the story of Jerry Springer. If people think of him at all, they know him as the host off the off-beat TV talk show where idiots yell at each other about ridiculous things. The truth is, he was a very promising politician in the Democratic party in the late 1960’s, working with Robert Kennedy’s campaign. It looked like he had a bright political career of his own ahead of him. That was all brought to a crashing halt by an indiscretion similar to Sanford’s.