South Carolina's Gov. Mark Sanford admits to affair

Today’s news out of South Carolina is a reminder of three important rules in politics: It isn’t the incident, it is the attempted coverup. It isn’t about sex, it’s about hypocrisy. Schadenfreude always wins in the end.

South Carolina Gov. Mark Sanford has admitted having an affair with a “dear, dear” friend in Argentina. That explains why he disappeared for days without telling his wife or staff his whereabouts. Trying to cover for the boss, his staff told everyone he was hiking the Appalachian Trail, only to be embarrassed by today’s announcement.

At a nationally televised news conference, Sanford apologized to his wife, family and people of faith all over the nation for his actions. A strong political conservative, he said he would step aside as head of the Republican Governors Assn. as well. He looked extremely tired and at times appeared on the verge of tears. He took a few questions, among them:

“Were you alone in Argentina?”

“Obviously not,” he replied.

 It is unclear what the announcement means for any presidential ambitions he may have. Or for the GOP in general. Nevada Sen. John Ensign, another Republican who some saw as having presidential potential, recently admitted that he had an extramarital affair.

-- Michael Muskal

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South Carolina Gov. Mark Sanford pauses to look at his notes as he admits to having an affair during a news conference Wednesday, June 24, 2009, and that was the reason why he was in Argentina. (AP Photo/Mary Ann Chastain)

Comments

[carly]

It is time for him to step down or for SC to impeach him. There is a related post at http://iamsoannoyed.com/?p=1930

[char]

Infidelity is so Villaraigosa. These republican morons need to think of something else to keep themselves relevant.

[Paul]

This is SO ridiculous... Why the hell does he need to apologize to the "people"?????
This is a personal matter - This country is SO messed up. My governor can go screw any female he wants - as long as he does his governor job right we should not care....
Bunch of retards... Go get a life and let people live theirs.

[Grandpa]

This guy is too stupid to even elicit a comment...

[bobach]

Do any of these "Family-values" GOPers know how to keep it in their pants? At least this one was doing it with a woman. (We presume!)

[Matt]

Those tears always wrok in the south. good thing you're not Villarigosa...you would have been butchered in the papers.

[John]

And he opposes gay marriage on moral grounds? Hypocrite! One man, one woman, then another woman on the side is OK??

[Barbara Green]

WHAT A JERK.

[Jonathan]

Well I guess this proves he's not the sharpest knive in the drawer.

[Howard Roarke]

How many decades has it been of Republicans setting one set of standards for me, and another for themselves.

Although college educated I can't find work even though I'm skilled. over 50 and being a white male is being discriminated against. Now my COBRA is running out. Having had 2 strokes - induced by letting my work situation get to me - I cannot find a plan for under $20k a year. So I would welcome a government plan, just like all these "public servents" have. And I would gladly pay a reasonable amount. But there was John McCain on TV saying I couldn't get that because then all uninsured and many insured (with inadequate coverage) would go on the government plan. Well, DUH!

These Republicans get there, and set rules for the rest of us. Those JA Republicans have had so many public out of wedlock affairs and broken up marriges, yet they still come on my TV everyday and talk about how moral they are.

And this guys didn't go along with Obama's economic plan. Golly, gee. What a surprise.

[paul]

PEOPLE, he was there to see his BABY.

Why else would he go down there five months after his wife found out? He was there to see his new CHILD.

[Jon K.]

The more people seem to focus on "family values" the less able they are to live up to them, it seems.

[Barnacle Bob]

If you are a woman from Argentina stay away from me! I don't care how uncommon or how beautiful you are, etc. All I know is that you have a way of making a State-Side Dude's common sense go out the window. First we hear about NYT Economics Reporter Edmund L. Andrews and his personal financial travails after marrying a long time love interest from Argentina. Now SC Gov. Marc Sanford's non-detachable Johnson takes a 5 day leave of absence to get with a certain beauty in Buenos Aires. Argentinian women, you may be the sirens but I am Odysseus tied to the mast!

[anotherwhiner]

Sanford should take a page from Villaraigosa's playbook, no pun intended, and nip this in the bud before he's forced to speak at another hastily arranged and ill-advised press conference to announce his resignation.

[Eddie]

Disappears to Argentina? GOP Conservatives always out pooching someone or something. What a sweet world it would be if they'd all just ZIP IT!!!! Perhaps some "people of faith" can chime in and explain why they're receiving an apology. Please, do tell.

[T]

Paul you can defend this guy all you want, but the point is.

the "height of irresponsibility for the governor to walk out on his solemn duty to the people of South Carolina."

Sen. John Ensign affair + Mark Sanford sex scandal = 0 Republican "conservative" values & ethics

[Dan]

"Sanford apologized to his wife, family and people of faith all over the nation for his actions."

Oh, I see... he apologizes to "people of faith", i.e., those who claim to have "morals", like he does, because they attempt to force their version of morality, and "family values" on the nation - NO to gays wanting to adopt unwanted children, NO to gays wanting to form stable, loving relationships, NO to gays wanting to serve in the military, NO to women who want to decide what is in the best interest of their own life during pregnancy, and on and on.

Guess what, Family Values Gov Sanford? As evil and despicable you think they are, "non-believers" are actually able to be faithful in marriage, and form loving, stable, giving, emphathetic families. And by the way, if you read the Constitution lately, as a government official, you serve non-believers as well as "people of faith".

When will this country get it? The difference between the democratic party and republican party is not in the amount of affairs either one has, it's about one party claiming moral superiority over the other, forcing government into the bedroom, and condemning a group of citizens that has been historically oppressed and not allowed the right to form stable relationships thru marriage. Condemning gays for actually WANTING loving stable relationships while secretly making a mockery of "morality" and marriage is the height of hypocricy.

[bill pearson]

republicans... the gift that keeps on giving... the only thing better would be sara palin in a lesbian video...

[John]

When someone is stridently favoring the rightwing culture war positions, probably his personal life is the opposite. I'm hoping this is another nail in the coffin for the culture war movement.

[Grandpa]

A married US governor having an affair with an Argentine woman. Is that something Bill Clinton built into NAFTA?

[trae]

Really, does anyone care? What about the crimes being committed by Acorn? The payouts to Banks, AIG, Acorn, Ms. Pelosi's accusations. I guess something is on the horizon again, a distraction (amnesty maybe) who cares who is seeing who? Why doesn't anyone really care about the hard working Americans, think we know why! They are all in the tank together, so sick of seeing these issues as the important issues of the day!

[Billy Bob]

O.k. we are all hypocritical in one form or another. What I can't forgive is the GOP standing on their moral high horse and tell the rest of us how to live our lives, who should work and live in this country (I wonder who cuts his yard), and who should marry (I guess F&*king another woman besides his wife is o.k. until you get caught).

The GOP is should be the part of "I'll do what ever I want until I get caught and tell the rest of America how to live their lives"...

Please give me a break!

[anthony]

The party of Less Government just got smaller today.
Mission accomplished.

[anthony]

Guess that's why he didn't need the stimulus package.

[Jim F.]

I guess DOMA wasn't enough to save this marriage. It must have been the gay marriages in Iowa that finally made him do it.

[Jim F.]

I see a book, and maybe a Lifetime channel special, for both the wife and the other woman.

[Sarahi L]

I am glad that her wife wasn't behind him when he talked with the media.
I hope she can leave behind this situation and continue his life with dignity. This man is so immature that left his job (what a job!) to go to see her mistress... and I hope her mistress doesn't get a green card, that obviously that was what she was looking for. They deserve each other.

[DontGetIt]

Wait until you read the emails he wrote to Senora on the official government system. A Hollywood porn producer should hire him. The pseudo-morality of it all will make it extra juicy. Seriously, track down the Atlanta Journal Constitution article with the emails - they're hot!!!

[Jim F.]

Hey, Paul, BINGO! And I'll bet he was there trying to talk her into getting an abortion. He'd pay, of course.

[Andres]

Wow, it appears his Argentinian affair got a bit Messi.

[imhotep]

Man, that must be some good stuff, to risk your job over, abandon your kids on father's day, leave your wife, your state, leave the country, gone for multiple DAYS, with no word, get caught and still fondly remembers how good it was. Whew, they call that the original crack.

The wife started this whole ball rolling, with one little comment... "I don't no where he is (cue dramatic music)"

[Robert]

I'm seriously ready to lose all hope. I don't ever remember a time in my life where the integrity of our elected officials has been so low. I'm an independent, too, so it's not a republican thing (they're just bigger hypocrites), but I ask, how is it possible to constantly be telling everybody one thing and then turn right around and do the opposite? How do these people look in the mirror? There is a dark mental illness in this land.

[FatNSassy]

I am soooo sick of affairs making news. Yes the fact he left the state unaccounted for is an issue, especially since he is the one running it. As is conservative hypocrisy. But it is beyond absurd stuff like this continues to make headlines while the real evil: the billion dollar banking rip off, the private contractors in Iraq rip off, the pharma rip off all draw less coverage and less moral outrage.

People will be people. In other countries affairs are almost institutionalized. We need our pleasures. This guys private life does not affect me. The faustian bargains our politicians and corporate leaders make every day do! Bring them to the light!

[cynthia]

You go to Argentina and not tell anyone when you are a govenor?? Is he involved as a spy or something? My first reaction. Maybe his affair admission is a cover.
At any rate, he was up to no good. And, no good will come of it.

[Stacey]

To all you GOP bashers---This happens in BOTH parties!
Because men are weak!

[Jerry Sedlacek]

The GOP adage has become "It's not the Sex, it's the Hypocrisy" Somewhere Bill Clinton is getting his bell rung and smiling for 2 reasons !

[Timray]

hahahaha........when are the people going to realize that the majority of politicians are this way....Republican.....Democrat....look at the losers who elect them to office.....Henry Waxman is afraid the Arctic tundra is going to evaporate!!! lmao!!!!!!!!!!!!! like i said....they reflect the losers who elect them

[RMain]

The "values voters" messed up by idolizing political power. The Republicans messed up by using them to get it. Now both are reaping what both have sown.

[Trudi]

"Sparky" is just one more republican hyoocrite.
The 'owners' of moral values, the moral majority, the holier than thou. THEY want to tell everyone how to live, worship, conduct their lives, determine what women should do with their own bodies, condem gays, the list is endless. They continually pontificate about 'God's mandates'. What God thinks, says, etcetc.
They nauseate me.

[Ross C. "Bubba" Nicholson]

These republicans need to quit punishing forgivable crimes and start punishing unforgivable crimes. George H.W. Bush shot JFK for the sake of his unfaithful wife who had to leave college with JFK's baby back in 1944. The elder Bush provided CIA date rape drugs to his son who used them to set up a brothel composed of young republican club teenagers of both sexes. Those same CIA amnesia producing suggestibility drugs that the younger Bush used to seduce hundreds of teeny-boppers (including Condi Rice), those drugs were used to automate killers who shot Ronald Reagan, shot at Ford, and killed George Wallace, Martin Luther King, Robert Francis Kennedy, and innocent Lee Harvey Oswald. The plumbers, remember? The gang that broke into the Watergate Hotel? They were all in Dealy Plaza together, you can recognize one, Martinez, by his photo squatting next to GHW Bush being nearly identical to his Watergate burglary mugshot. The plumbers took poor Vince Foster out of the White House and shot him in cold blood. The plumbers framed Teddy Kennedy and killed Mary Jo, then framed his son years later with exactly the same M.O.
The Bush gang of murderers have lied to republicans, raped republicans, drugged republicans to steal their money, the honor, and their very lives. When will republicans step up and start asking some questions? Asked where he was when he 'found out' that JFK had been shot, GHW Bush told a nationwide Larry King audience "I don't remember' -- He's the only person King ever interviewed who couldn't remember where he was that afternoon living at the time, November 22, 1963.

[bill]

Maybe, he, villagrosa and newsome should hang out, they all come from the same mold

[Jim H]

To me, it's not the affair, it's the story line. He loses every political fight and is forced to take the dreaded Stimulus Money. Drowning his sorrows, he disappears, apparently not telling his wife, his staff, or the people, where he is. By the time he's back from his sad tryst, he's a laughing stock of the country, and his whole staff hates him. He's not necessarily dead politically, but he needs some stunning successes. And God knows, I don't know where he'd get them. He could go to the Argentine pampas and learn to throw the bolo, I guess. Herd ostriches.

[Mehdi]

Boo hoo, boo hoo, I'm so sorry, so so sorry .... so sorry I got caught!

[susan]

I wouldn't care if the guy had an affair, BUT being AWOL from his job as governor, so that even his staff was lied to about where he was, was dereliction of duty.

Sounds like he may have been seeing a love child -- why else take that risk? As for his wife -- if she wants him, fine, if not, ditch him. I'm sick of phony marriages for "the public." I'd rather see someone separated and divorced than these phony marriages pretending "we'll patch it up" like she's saying I don't want a patched-up marriage: a GOOD marriage is a big support but a bad one sucks the life out of you.

[Bill G]

Apparently, the GOP needs a review of the Defense of Marriage Act. I guess to some extent you could say they're equal opportunity denigrators; they denigrate gay and straight marriages equally.

Somewhere, Bill Clinton is smoking a cigar.

Something tells me there's still a bombshell or two to go off down in Buenos Aires. This whole sorry teary-eyed affair smells like last week's fish.

[Schigolch]

Ask Hillary for her comments.

[john wilson]

FDR cheated on his wife for years...JFK brought hookers into the White House...Senator Ted Kennedy ..Senator Edwards...Gov. Spitzer...Gov. Patterson..now this guy...something about power just goes to some people's head...

[Steve]

Another Republican hypocrite, all Christian, all anti gay marriage, all family, yet a 4 year affair is OK. What is with this lying idiot, a beautiful wife, 4 kids and like many political whores he has to have an affair. This guy is such a moron, he could not find a mistress down the street, no he has to find one 10K miles away. It is scary, lying sucks like this are in office and this guy should be out of office today. Just supports my belief all politicians are liars, whores and thieves.

[wholesale watches]

Omega