Prodigal governor returns

Scripps Howard: South Carolina Gov. Mark Sanford seemed to have developed a novel tactic for an aspiring politician to draw attention to himself: He disappeared.

He ditched his security detail last Thursday and apparently no one -- not his wife, his staff or his lieutenant governor -- knew where he was. On Monday, however, his staff said he was hiking the Appalachian Trail to clear his head and “recharge his batteries” after a long battle with the legislature and in the courts that he ultimately lost on whether the state should reject $700 million in federal stimulus money.

Exotic truth

On Wednesday, when Sanford showed up at Atlanta’s airport, the truth about his whereabouts turned out to be a lot more exotic, but also sadder. Sanford had been in Buenos Aires. With his girlfriend. Sanford said that the affair had begun over a year ago and that his wife had known about it for the last five months. He indicated he had used the past week to break off the affair and said, with what seemed no attempt at humor, that indeed there had been a lot of crying in Argentina.

In a rambling preface to a brief press conference, he apologized to his wife, children, relatives, staff and every person in South Carolina, and announced that he was resigning as head of the Republican Governors Association. The public was spared the usual ritual at these public confessions of sin of the wronged wife standing bravely at her husband’s side.

Sanford seemed willing to answer more questions, but aides led him away, presumably to pick up the pieces of his marriage. His political career ... may be beyond salvage.