Thoughts about Jenny Sanford

Jenny Sanford appeared on NPR’s On Point yesterday, talking about the implosion of her marriage with South Carolina Governor Mark Sanford.

You can hear the conversation here.

In the media tour that accompanied the release of her new book, Sanford comes across as a reasonable, sincere and sympathetic woman.

She bats away most political questions, arguing that she’s just a mom now, a family woman, charged with rebuilding her life for herself and her sons, buoyed by her Christian faith.

At risk of sounding callous, I’m not buying it. And here’s why.

The Sanfords — like many conservative politicians — built their careers around the image of traditionalist virtue.

The Republican Party established as a pillar of its success the notion that politics, religion and our private lives are all intertwined.

Conservatives wrestle passionately with everything from contraception to sex education to same-sex marriage and abortion.

Again and again, they insist that their vision of life and family and society is “normal.”

Some traditionalists have even embraced the idea of “natural law,” arguing that the world was structured by God to re-enforce a traditionalist social model.

But again and again when conservative leaders fail, they pivot away from this linkage.

They insist on privacy, on being allowed to wrestle with their private demons outside the context of the political debate.

But Ms. Sanford wasn’t a private citizen. She ran her husband’s political campaigns, helping to craft his (and her own) public image.

As first lady of her state, her beliefs helped to shape the lives of hundreds of thousands of people.

I’m not suggesting that the Sanfords are hypocrites, wealthy libertines masquerading as modest Christians.

I’m suggesting that it’s necessary to not avert our gazes when their ideals — ideals the conservative movement hopes to enshrine in law — prove to be embarrassingly out of sync with reality.

Ms. Sanford writes the following in her book:

“I shiver when I think that while I was cleaning up after a delicious family meal … he was e-mailing his ‘soul mate’ with visions of her tan lines.”

But I’m curious less about her private revelations and more about her civic ones.

In light of her husband’s lies, what does she think about her movement and its certainty, its dogged conviction, that it knows the shape of human virtue?