The verdict from my e-mailers is in, and it’s nearly unanimous: Mike Potemra is a chump. Here’s one that’s fairly typical:

You write . . . “I’m just glad to have seen somebody standing up and doing the right thing, being honest about sin and responsibility” HAHAHAHA Puh-leeeeze!!!! The f***er got caught is what happened. Another family values-spouting GOPer down the tubes!

I stand by what I said in my post: At a time when he was publicly humiliated, done in by the consequences of his own actions, Governor Sanford showed a great deal of dignity. I was taking time to point this out, before the political world moved on to the next part of the ritual: the Jokes and the Political Commentary. If my e-mail is anything to go by, most folks aren’t in the mood for that breathing space, but I think it’s a good thing to do anyway. In any case, the next step will be all too easy.

Jokes? OK: “Well, he always said South Carolina didn’t need the stimulus . . .”

Political Commentary? OK: As someone who favors gay marriage, I think this Sanford scandal underscores a central truth. The anti-gay-marriage forces are stuck making a slippery-slope argument when, in fact, we’re already at the bottom of the slippery slope. Here’s a guy, Sanford, who has not just not a moral and religious incentive to keep his marriage vows, but also a political-survival incentive. Yet the public sense of the sacredness of marriage has declined to the point that even he couldn’t do it. How much more could this institution be eviscerated, by letting a tiny, tiny minority of same-sexers join it? (Gays are a small fraction of the population, and the percentage of them who want to get married is a small fraction of the small fraction. The issue is, as the lawyers say, de minimis.)

You see what I mean: This stuff all writes itself. There will be gallons of ink spilled on it in coming days. I deny none of the charges against Sanford. But I continue to insist that what we saw today was something important and impressive: a broken man, his ambitions in ruins, telling the truth. He was brought to his knees, but I think he stood tall.