A Governor Unravels

You knew there had to be a woman.

The only question was how long it would take for Mark Sanford to run through his list of apologies before getting around to acknowledging it.

That was one painful presser, as the South Carolina governor, choking up at times, admitted that "I spent the last five days of my life crying in Argentina" -- with his girlfriend. No carefully scripted talking points, just an overwrought, guilt-ridden man. He came apart on live television.

It was riveting, but you couldn't help but feel a mixture of sympathy and revulsion as the self-described "person of faith" talked about breaching "God's law."

I had trouble keeping up with my note-taking as Sanford apologized to his wife Jenny, his four boys, his friends, his colleagues, his parents and the voters. He said his wife and family had known since the affair was "discovered" five months ago, so the first lady played along with the he's-off-decompressing story line.

The way that Sanford rambled, the way he wouldn't even say whether he and his wife were separated -- well, the most generous interpretation is that he was in considerable pain. And those, like Glenn Beck, who said the media were overblowing a little absence, are looking a bit foolish.

I give Sanford credit, though, for taking press questions instead of running back to the bunker. But forget about the 2012 Republican primary: How does a term-limited governor come back from that?

When you take a step back and look at all the pols who have cheated or otherwise given in to their sexual demons, you wonder: Is it a reaction to the pressures of office, or the sense of entitlement that so many feel?

Bill Clinton. Newt Gingrich. John Edwards. John Ensign. Antonio Villaraigosa. Gavin Newsom. Larry Craig. Rudy Giuliani. Eliot Spitzer. Jim McGreevey. Kwame Kilpatrick. Mark Foley. David Vitter. And on and on. Maybe politicians should call news conferences to announce they're not having affairs.

While we don't yet know much about the mystery woman named Maria -- how long before TMZ gets a photo of her? -- it looks like the governor didn't fool around with a staff member, or the wife of a staff member, or someone getting a state contract. His spouse didn't have cancer. He didn't use the federal stimulus money he opposed for the trip. Adultery is illegal in South Carolina, punishable by up to a year in jail, but let's write that off as a technicality.

So Sanford is just another middle-aged guy with problems in his marriage, and might be given a pass.

That is, if he hadn't lied about his whereabouts with the whole Appalachian Trail thing. The man walked off his job and left the country -- how, exactly, did he think he could get away with that? And he let his absence mushroom into a national story.