Mark Sanford's Wild Ride Of Hypocrisy

For the second time this month, a prominent, moralistic politician has been caught cheating on his wife. This is one of the more interesting cases of marital infidelity you'll ever hear: the Governor of South Carolina disappeared from work for a week -- he wasn't on vacation, he just left -- and told his staffers he was hiking, but he actually went on a South America tryst:

After going AWOL for seven days, Gov. Mark Sanford admitted Wednesday that he'd secretly flown to Argentina to visit a woman with whom he'd been having an affair. He apologized to his wife and four sons and said he will resign as head of the Republican Governors Association.

"I've let down a lot of people, that's the bottom line," the 49-year-old governor said at a news conference where he choked up as he ruminated with remarkable frankness on God's law, moral absolutes and following one's heart. His family did not attend.

The woman, who lives in Argentina, has been a "dear, dear friend" for about eight years but, Sanford said, the relationship didn't become romantic until a little over a year ago. He's seen her three times since then, and his wife found out about it five months ago.

As an added bonus, several emails between Sanford and his mistress, "Maria," have been discovered. Here is an excerpt from a June 10, 2008 message from Sanford, where he proves middle aged Republicans really do have a romantic side:

You have a particular grace and calm that I adore. You have a level of sophistication that is so fitting with your beauty. I could digress and say that you have the ability to give magnificently gentle kisses, or that I love your tan lines or that I love the curves of your hips, the erotic beauty of you holding yourself (or two magnificent parts of yourself) in the faded glow of night’s light — but hey, that would be going into the sexual details we spoke of at the steakhouse at dinner — and unlike you I would never do that!

I might feel bad for the guy if he didn't support the impeachment of Bill Clinton. And all these years after leaving office, we might have finally found Clinton's true legacy: exposing hypocrites. Sanford is only the latest in a long list of people -- John Ensign and Newt Gingrich prominent among them -- who condemned Clinton's infidelity, but have since been busted as cheaters themselves.

However, when you think about it, what Sanford did was much worse than what Clinton did. When Clinton was receiving oral pleasure, he was working late into the night, and he never even took a break from talking business on the phone. Sanford, on the other hand, went AWOL from his job and left the continent. Say what you about Clinton, but at least he put his duties as president ahead of his extramarital affairs.