Lyre, Lyre

So Governor Mark Sanford, who disappeared for a week with his mistress in Buenos Aires, then got caught, then issued a cringe-inducing apology, has refused to resign from office. As well he should have; that’s just what King David would have done. Here’s Sanford during a televised cabinet meeting this morning:

I have been doing a lot of soul searching on that front. What I find interesting is the story of David, and the way in which he fell mightily, he fell in very very significant ways. But then picked up the pieces and built from there.

David did indeed pick up the pieces; as punishment for snagging Bathsheba away from Uriah, whom he sent to certain death in war, David’s son with her was condemned by God to die. Then Absalom, another son, by a different mom, rebelled against his father’s reign and had sex with ten of David’s concubines in public (and not on Father’s Day), causing a civil war and, eventually, Absalom’s death.

How’s resignation sounding now, Governor?

Sanford: King David Didn’t Resign, So Why Should I? [TPM Cafe]
Buy: The Life of David, by Robert Pinsky [Nextbook Press]