As noted in the last post, you get a very strange view of America if it’s only from the perspective of the economic aristocracy which presumes the country’s interests are identical to its own. Another example on today’s cookie plate is from none other than Maria Belen Chapur, the fiancee of newly resurrected South Carolina congressman Mark Sanford, who wants us to know her paramour is a self-sacrificing man who’s not into politics for the money:
She said Sanford has made major sacrifices for his country, and suggested that no one should think their partnership is about money.
“What I can tell you is that he works incredibly hard, he deeply loves his country. What he’s gone through these past five years — he could have left it all behind him. It’s not about the money. The whole world has this fantasy that governors or congressman make a lot of money.”
“I can tell you that a governor makes $108,000 a year and from this you have to deduct a third in taxes, so from this he can’t even pay for private school for his children, without of course help from family or a fortune from before.
Perhaps out of delicacy she does not mention that the family fortune that kept Sanford’s children safely out of public schools (or “government schools,” as SC Republican often call them) when he was governor belonged to his now-ex-wife Jenny. But it’s good to know that even without those resources he’s willing to pass up easy consultant or lobbying gigs to work so hard to keep his former peers in the upper reaches of Palmetto State society in the highest possible cotton. I mean, what a mensch, eh?
