Gone fishin'

Nice work if you can get it ... and you can evade work responsibility if your name is Mark Sanford and you're the governor of South Carolina.

In Canada - and I presume that applies in other countries as well - if you hold a job that involves important responsibilities, you don't spontaneously go incommunicado & AWOL, while not even ensuring that a colleague has assumed your key legal tasks. But an elected official in the US? Not so much, it appears.

The whereabouts of Gov. Mark Sanford was unknown for nearly four days, and some state leaders question who was in charge of the executive office. ...

Neither the governor’s office nor the State Law Enforcement Division, which provides security for governors, had been able to reach Sanford after he left the mansion Thursday in a black SLED Suburban SUV, said Sen. Jake Knotts and three others familiar with the situation but declined to be identified. ...

First lady Jenny Sanford told The Associated Press earlier Monday her husband has been gone for several days and she did not know where. She said she was not concerned. ... Jenny Sanford said the governor said he needed time away from their children to write something.

The governor’s office issued a statement Monday afternoon: "Gov. Sanford is taking some time away from the office this week to recharge after the stimulus battle and the legislative session, and to work on a couple of projects that have fallen by the wayside. We are not going to discuss the specifics of his travel arrangements or his security arrangements."

Thank gawd Sanford is a pale-skinned, English-speaking Republican otherwise US religious fundamentalist rightwingnutters in the state of South Carolina would have worked themselves into a state of shrieeeking frenzy by now.

Update: At Truth, Justice and Tacos, the blogger makes a good point about Sanford taking off for a hike on Fathers' Day and leaving his wife and four sons wondering WTF? Fundie Christian Family Values ©™ anyone?

One final note: Sanford has been acting squirrely for some time now. ... All of this should be deeply troubling to the people of South Carolina. Clearly, something is up with Sanford. Whether it's some kind of weird mental breakdown, or something as pedestrian as an affair, I have no idea. But should Sanford ever come down off the trail, I imagine he's going to have to do a loooooot of PR spinning.

Un grand merci to Canadian Cynic for alerting us to "Building the New Majority Conferenece" (sic).