by William Moultrie

Columbia – Embattled governor Mark Sanford has yet again brushed off calls for him to resign his position. In another long and meandering press conference on Thursday, Sanford explained that he knew he had been a bad boy, but that he didn’t feel he should be expelled.

“I know I’ve been naughty,” Sanford said, “but I don’t think I should be kicked out.  Instead, I am promising to individually apologize to each and every South Carolinian who feels they have been misled or otherwise cheated by me — Democrats too.  In addition, I promise I will come straight home after work every day, I won’t go jogging without my security detail, I won’t stay up past 11:00, and I’ll clean my room. Also, I promise to limit my interaction with Maria to phone sex and internet chats with no video — she’s not into the video thing. All I ask is that I be allowed to fulfill the commitment I made to engage in a series of trade discussions with Argen.. I mean Paraguay over the next 18 months. Oh, and please let me keep my X-Box.”

State lawmakers were skeptical of the proposal.

“On the surface it sounds reasonable,” said state House Speaker Bobby Harrell (R-Charleston), “but he hasn’t proved that he can be responsible.  I’m not convinced we can trust him to live up to his own terms.”

“Actually, I’m inclined to go along with this,” said state Senate President Pro Tempore Glenn McConnell (R-Charleston), “but we’ll be watching closely.  Last year when he asked for a puppy, he promised to walk it, feed it, and clean up after it, so we gave him a dog. Two weeks later, I stopped by to check on him and the dog was scratching at the door and there were stains all over the rug. We had a long talk about responsibility after that and Mark did much better, but I’m not giving him as much latitude this time.  I’ll be driving by the governor’s mansion every night at midnight and I better not see his light on.”

“This sucks,” said Lt. Governor André Bauer. “They just don’t want me to be governor and it’s not fair. I promised them I’d be good too, but do they believe me? No. They always side with Mark.  All I hear every day from those jerks is ‘Why can’t you be more like Mark?’ and ‘Mark is so smart’ and ‘drive slower’ … it’s just not right. Mark, Mark, Mark… he makes me sick.”

“Really, they’re going for it?” asked Sanford, when he heard Harrell’s and McConnell’s comments. “Sweet! I swear I’ll do better this time.  Now if you’ll excuse me, I need some privacy to make a long-distance phone call.”