1 Boring Old Man

… When Congressman Mark Souder took the microphone at a tea-party gathering of the Elkhart County Patriots last month, I thought to myself that he must be feeling pressure from his deep-pockets challenger, Bob Thomas, who was commanding the area’s airwaves with commercial after commercial criticizing Souder as "a career politician." Disheveled and about the furthest from anything resembling dapper or dashing, there was an urgency in Souder’s voice as he praised "the premises of our country" and noted that it was necessary "to put the fire back in the Republican Party." Just after he denounced abortion, he asserted in unequivocal terms: "You have to have a moral people."

Today that line – and Souder’s entire career as a defender of conservative social values – prompt head-shaking disbelief here in his home state after Tuesday’s announcement that he’s had an affair with a woman on his staff and is resigning his House seat, effective Friday. Though he prevailed in the primary two weeks ago, voters in the Third District of Indiana are trying to make sense of his sudden departure. Novelists can explain darkened hearts with greater ability than political analysts – fiction offering possibilities reality rarely affords. In Souder’s case, though, his straight-arrow consistency in espousing personal ethics and conduct makes his confession all the more stunning.

A self-described evangelical Christian and MBA graduate of the University of Notre Dame, Souder even taped videos about sexual abstinence and the evils of abortion with the woman implicated in the liaison. If a novelist can’t do justice to these circumstances, Jon Stewart or "Saturday Night Live" probably can …

Robert Schmuhl, Politics Daily

It’s almost impossible to ponder this story without addressing either his remarkable level of hypocrisy or wondering what a looker like Tracy Jackson is doing with an unappealing guy like Mark Souder. And the part about his "mistake" is a bit hard to buy. She’s been around since 2004 and while the details are still kind of vague, it seems like his affair has been going on for a pretty long time – one of those chronic mistakes, spanning several election cycles. It can’t be passed off as some country bumpkin getting caught up in the fast life of Washington DC. Tracy was part of his back·home·in·Indiana Staff, shepherding his interviews on the local Christian stations.

^{• IT HAS BEEN ALL CONSUMING FOR ME TO DO THIS JOB WELL, ESPECIALLY IN A DISTRICT WITH COSTLY, COMPETITIVE ELECTIONS EVERY TWO YEARS. I DO NOT HAVE ANY SORT OF “NORMAL” LIFE – FOR FAMILY, FOR FRIENDS, FOR CHURCH, FOR COMMUNITY.}
^{• IN THE POISONOUS ENVIRONMENT OF WASHINGTON DC, ANY PERSONAL FAILING IS SEIZED UPON, OFTEN TWISTED, FOR POLITICAL GAIN. I AM RESIGNING RATHER THAN TO PUT MY FAMILY THROUGH THAT PAINFUL, DRAWN-OUT PROCESS. DIANE AND MY FAMILY WERE MORE THAN WILLING TO STAND HERE WITH ME. WE ARE A COMMITTED FAMILY.}
^{• AMERICA WILL SURVIVE AND THRIVE WHEN ANCHORED IN THOSE VALUES. HUMAN BEINGS, LIKE ME, WILL FAIL, BUT OUR CAUSE IS GREATER THAN INDIVIDUALS. IT IS BASED UPON ETERNAL TRUTHS.}
^{• BY STEPPING ASIDE, MY MISTAKE CANNOT BE USED AS A POLITICAL FOOTBALL IN A PARTISAN ATTEMPT TO UNDERMINE THE CAUSE FOR WHICH I HAVE LABORED ALL MY ADULT LIFE.}

I’m not really being fair to him. The discrepancies I’m talking about are actually symptomatic of the cognitive dissonance he’s caught up in right now. There’s nothing he could possibly say that would explain his moral creed and his philandering. He is still talking like a self-righteous crusader fighting the forces of evil that seek to undermine his sacred values, and representing the very target of his own campaign. He hasn’t yet figured out how to be where he is right now.