THIS IS A TALE of two vetoes -- one that happened, and one that didn't.

It sheds light onto the workings of the mind of Gov. Mark Sanford -- a matter of some perplexity to many.

On Wednesday, the governor vetoed funding for a State House monument to honor S.C. law enforcement officers killed in the line of duty. He did so because it would have spent $500,000 of state money during hard times.

Mr. Sanford made it clear that he was all for a monument to fallen officers, but he wasn't going to spend public money on it in a year when "the State Law Enforcement Division is running a deficit of two million dollars and the Department of Corrections is running a deficit of twenty-seven million dollars."

In other words, he prefers to spend the money on live law enforcement officers, thereby possibly keeping some of them alive.

Very sensible, I thought, although not politically smart. This is going to cost the governor support on things he wants to do. One Republican lawmaker, Rep. James Merrill, decried the veto as "grandstanding by the governor," and promised to "hold up" another bill the governor wanted, "to get his attention."

They may be unhappy, but at least the bill's supporters can't say the governor didn't carefully consider their project before deep-sixing it. The governor spent surprising amounts of time agonizing over this and one other bill.

The other restored lottery funding to five historically black colleges in the state -- Allen University, Benedict College, Claflin University, Morris College and Voorhees College. The legislation was of critical importance to several African-American lawmakers because while poor, black South Carolinians are the most loyal players of the lottery, they are far less likely to receive lottery-funded LIFE scholarships, which tend to go to the middle-class kids with the high SATs.

"I will fight for it with my last breath," said Sen. Darrell Jackson early this year.

The governor came within a hair's breadth of vetoing this one, too, but decided finally to let it become law without his signature.

Like the other one, this decision was made after an extended bout of Hamlet-like deliberation on the governor's part, starting early Monday and running well into the night on Wednesday.

The governor brought up his indecision over the bills in two phone conversations last week.

He said they illustrated "our inability as a state to prioritize." They were small amounts, but they failed to fit into a smart strategic framework for the state.

He acknowledged the wisdom in advice he received warning of the danger in vetoing these bills in terms of the political ill will they could engender, but insisted that "My gut is different, and I've always operated on a gut level."

He said he told his pragmatic staffers, "What you're asking me to do is become the person I am not" -- someone who would calculate decisions based less on the merits, and more on strategic advantage. And for good or for ill, that's not Mark Sanford.

"This is a pure guy," Chief of Staff Fred Carter said of his boss. "I disagree with him vehemently, but I respect the thought processes." Dr. Carter was trying to tell the governor that "we need every single vote" to pass his restructuring legislation, which "represents enduring reform," as opposed to saving a buck or two. Mr. Sanford was unconvinced.

What finally got him to back off on the bill for private black colleges was that Sen. Jackson convinced him that he was clinging to one principle at the expense of another. "Mark, you also believe in the principle of equity," the governor recalled the senator saying (which the senator later confirmed). Apparently, the fact that lottery funds were being disbursed in a way that denied opportunity to many won him over.

I asked the governor whether he didn't think he was obsessing about the trees at the expense of the forest. Shouldn't he trust his staff's advice on the small things, and focus on the big picture?

No, he said, because the two are inseparable. It's a matter of integrity. "Get the little things right, and the big things will take care of themselves."

Dr. Carter has learned that to his boss, there are no small issues. "Every piece of legislation that comes down here is a very consequential piece of legislation in the mind of Mark Sanford," he said.

"Mark Sanford loves the Socratic process," said Dr. Carter. "He loves the exchange." He never talks about whose side he will be on, or who will be made happy or angry by a decision; it's all about the merits.

"The guy is the consummate professor," said the once and future college president. "He doesn't know it, but he is."

Coincidentally, Mr. Sanford had told me of a friend from Congress, Tom Campbell, R-Calif., now a professor at Stanford. Mr. Campbell had served before in Congress, and had played the game strategically, making deals to get things done. But after he went home, those deals bothered his conscience. When he went back to the House in 1996, he resolved to stick to his principles. The governor said that was some of the best advice he had ever received. Not the best political advice, but the best in terms of being able to sleep at night.

To the governor, that means there are no matters too small to agonize over. To him, each tree is essential to the forest.

"He thinks deductively," Dr. Carter of the governor. "He reasons from generalities to specifics." He urged me to listen for that the next time I talk to his boss.

I will. And while I'm listening, I'll still be trying to decide for myself whether I think $500,000 is worth jeopardizing the goal of restructuring all of state government.