Mark Souder has announced his resignation from the House of Representatives, effective Friday.

"I sinned against God, my wife and my family by having a mutual relationship with a part-time member of my staff,” he said in a prepared statement. “In the poisonous environment of Washington, D.C., 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."

Well, he won't escape entirely, but it'll get it over faster. They're already mocking him all over the internet.

My Former Bookseller

Mark used to be my bookseller, before he entered politics. When my first wife and I lived in Milan Center, Indiana, he ran the family business, Souder's, in Grabill. It was mostly a furniture store, but it had started out as a general store, and its origins had not entirely been erased. He still sold some groceries, mostly candy and such, and he had a bookstore there, where I kept buying Louis L'Amour paperbacks.

Grabill is a small town north of Fort Wayne. The four local Old Order Amish groups were located in the Grabill/Harlan/Milan Center area, and Souder belonged to the almost-plain Apostolic church. The Apostolic are similar to the Mennonite, in that they drive cars and such, but they make an effort to avoid fancy and prideful ownership, and they try hard to conform to the demands of God as best they can, rather than conform to the world.

As a rule, I'm down on fundamentalists. The plain sects are stricter fundamentalists than most fundamentalists, but I like them, even though I disagree with their doctrine, because they aren't arrogant and offensive. That doesn't mean they don't witness to the world, but they do it with the quiet self-assurance that if they ACT like Christians, instead of merely announcing it, you'll NOTICE - and instead of being repulsed by it, you'll have a tendency to be drawn in.

Grabill Is Too Small

Grabill is too small for a big high-priced furniture store; most people buy that kind of merchandise within fifteen minutes of their home. Fort Wayne had a local recession in the 1980s when the largest employer in town, International Harvester, closed their factory, and looking into his crystal ball, Mark decided that Souder's of Grabill didn't have much of a future. He ended up holding a going-out-of-business sale.

Jobs were few and far between, and Mark took a job working for one the Dans. When Dan Quayle moved from the House of Representatives to the Senate, Dan Coats won his seat in the House. When Dan Quayle became Vice-President, Dan Coats won his seat in the Senate, and Dan, uh, Dan Heath? I can't remember. Another Dan ran for the House. It was sort of a joke. To be successful, you needed to be a young white, male, Republican named Dan.

Except that the party leaders had asked Mark Souder to run for office. That was a problem. Apostolics weren't supposed to go into politics. Mark had needed to do some fancy dancing in order to stay in the good graces of the church even working as an aide. "All that is necessary for the triumph of evil is for good men to do nothing." Except that the church fathers weren't swayed by the words of Disraeli. They paid more attention to Romans 12, that tells followers to keep apart from the world.

I Asked Mark

I asked Mark about closing the store. He said that if they'd gone to low-end merchandise, they could have survived. As an experiment, he'd gotten in a semi load of el-cheapo recliners, offered them cash-and-carry for $99, and sold them all in two days. What's more, he hadn't had a single complaint from customers on them. People buy an expensive sofa and a seam lets go a year later, they complain to him. A shoddy recliner, he said, people know it's cheap junk, and they have no such expectations, but it's good enough to take up and leave in the cottage at the lake.

But he didn't want to sell cheap junk, he said. He thought it would be an insult to his family's name, after more than a century of selling worthwhile furniture. He didn't know, he said, whether he was going into politics or not. It didn't look like the church was going to approve, he said. And I got the impression that his wife was calling the shots. The GOP wanted him to go into politics. His wife wanted him to go into politics. He was happy running the district office for the congressman, solving problems for the constituents.

I figured that he was going into politics. When your wife wants something that bad, what choice does a man have? Behind every successful man, they say, there's a woman. What they don't say is that behind every disgraced man, there's also a woman. There's a word for men who aren't pussy-whipped. It's "gay". Well, yeah, that is overstating the case a little - but not by much.

According To Reports

According to the reports I've seen - and I'm sure I don't have all the story, but in these things, nobody ever does - she interviewed him for Christian broadcaster WFCV weekly, with a short spot running daily on the air. Tracy Jackson is married as well; they snuck off to state parks for their nookie, which is a time-honored practice of Hoosiers and Buckeyes, even in the middle of winter.

Mark Souder just won his primary two weeks ago, defeating Bob Thomas. Bob has been the Ford dealer in Fort Wayne for 30 years, and he bought a Ford dealership in Indianapolis 25 years ago. The party will choose someone to fill the spot on the ticket, and they could do far worse than Thomas. Surviving in that business takes some acumen and some common sense - and if nothing else, Thomas has name recognition from the primary.

The Democrat running for Souder's seat is Tom Hayhurst. Hayhurst was (is?) a city councilman in Fort Wayne, and was (is?) a doctor. I've never doctored with Hayhurst, but my first wife, Em, was a world class RN who knew everyone in Fort Wayne, and she spoke reverently of both Hayhurst and Fouts, his partner, as both nice people and exceptionally competent physicians. It won't be easy for him to win, though, because except for the city of Fort Wayne, it's a strongly Republican area. A couple of decades ago, the GOP held every elective office in the Indiana state government, as well as holding all the Indiana seats in the US House and Senate.

It's Fashionable

It's fashionable these days to pillory men who can't keep their trousers zipped, but I won't be joining in, in this case. Souder pushed hard for abstinence education - but he wasn't a hypocrite; he actually believed in what he was promoting. There's a difference between knowing what to do, and actually being able to do it.

I recall the story of the guy who went to his doctor, and the doctor told him that the best thing would be to give up rich foods and alcohol, staying up all hours, and partying with wild women. "The thing is, doctor," the patient said, "I don't think I deserve the best. What's second best?"

Other Bloggers On Related Topics:
Apostolic - Bob Thomas - Dan Coats - Dan Quayle - Disraeli - Fort Wayne - Grabill - Harlan - International Harvester - John Fouts - Mark Souder - Mennonite - Milan Center - Romans 12 - Tom Hayhurst - Tracy Jackson