Bu..bu...but they told him he was SPECIAL and CHOSEN!

Mark Sanford simply won't go away:

Gov. Mark Sanford said he was a broken man after admitting an extramarital affair in June, a revelation that required him to pick up the pieces of his administration and fend off efforts to remove him from office.

In the 100 days since he returned from his secret trip to Argentina to acknowledge his affair, Sanford's schedule shows - and observers agree - the Republican governor has turned his focus to the state's moribund economy.

But that new focus came only after weeks of vacations and apologies and a campaign to defend Sanford from questions about his use of state planes.

[snip]

What has Sanford done over the last 100 days?

- He has been on out-of-state trips or vacations a fifth of the time.

- He has spent another 16 days traveling the state to speak to civic and community groups, generally opening his speeches with an apology.

- He has toured a handful of state manufacturing plants and small businesses and also visited with job-creation and technical school programs.

- He moved, by an executive order, a program for developmentally challenged infants and toddlers to First Steps, an early education program created by his Democratic predecessor.

Sanford's official schedule typically contains no more than three or four items a week.

The never-ending Mark Sanford saga is interesting not just because it demonstrates a man with one hell of a pathological narcissism monkey on his back, but also one whose very belief system has been shaken to its core. It's easy to understand why pathological narcissists would be attracted to the doctrine put forth by "The Family" (of which Sanford is a member), because it elevates "clean slate Christianity" to an entirely new plane, one where there is an even smaller "elite" than the huge number of worldwide Christians, one that is, according to David Coe, heir apparent to the group's founder Douglas Coe, exempt from the rules of conduct according to which the rest of us are obligated to live.

Jeff Sharlet, in an excerpt from his book:

Attempting to explain what it means to be chosen for leadership like King David was -- or Mark Sanford, according to his own estimate -- he asked a young man who'd put himself, body and soul, under the Family's authority, "Let's say I hear you raped three little girls. What would I think of you?" The man guessed that Coe would probably think that he was a monster. "No," answered Coe, "I wouldn't." Why? Because, as a member of the Family, he's among what Family leaders refer to as the "new chosen." If you're chosen, the normal rules don't apply.

The article linked above is worth reading in its entirety, because it is a portrait of a man who has yet to believe that his spiritual leaders have lied to him when they said he was part of a special elite for whom the rules don't apply. If you thought Mark Sanford had already had his complete breakdown, you haven't seen anything yet.