Um, I meant "more on Sanford."  Freudian slip.  Anyway, three additional thoughts about this, the gist of which you can probably already figure out:

(1) Sanford might have survived a garden variety affair, even with some Presidential aspirations intact.  But add the disappearance, the lie about his whereabouts, and the fact that he had gone halfway around the globe for this, and I feel pretty comfortable thinking he's done.  Thinking that he could jet off to Argentina for a weekend for an affair and that no one would know is pretty amazingly poor judgment.

(2) There's probably only about seven or eight hundred people who serve as Governor, Senator, or Representative in a given decade.  That's a pretty select group of people.   I know a lot of people with about that many Facebook friends, and I'm guessing I've been relatively well acquainted with a pretty decent multiple of that number in my life.

Yet from that relatively small sample, in the last decade alone we have sex scandals from Sanford, Paul Patton, John Ensign, John Edwards, Jim McGreevey, Ed Schrock, Don Sherwood, Eliot Spitzer, Gary Condit, Mark Foley, David Vitter, Larry Craig, Vito Fossella, and Tim Mahoney.  Those are just off the top of my head.  And a good number of those aren't your run-of-the-mill affairs; they're first-rate flameouts.

Maybe I'm just naive, maybe I lead a boring, mundane life, but I don't think there's too many random samples of 700 people in America where you'd get two people who consorted with prostitutes, a guy who tried to solicit a prostitute in an airport bathroom, a guy who jetted off to Argentina for an affair, a guy who choked his mistrees, a person who has TGIF Specials with his wife and best friend and puts his lover in a pretty important patronage position, to say nothing of the few mundane affairs in the mix.  I've met a lot of people in my personal and professional life, and dealing with lawyers I've especially dealt with some difficult personalities, and I can only think of a handful of stories I've heard that even approach this stuff.

And even if I'm wrong about this and the sample is representative, few of those people would be in the public eye.  To me that's the most amazing thing about this -- not so much that Eliot Spitzer paid a prostitute, but that he thought that as Governor he had a decent chance of not ever getting caught (because if there's any group of Americans known for their honesty and discretion, its prostitutes).  Heck, three of the people on the list above were prospective Presidential candidates -- John Edwards was apparently carrying on during a Presidential campaign.  John Ensign was gearing up for one.  And again (sorry if I keep repeating this, but it blows my mind) Sanford disappeared for a weekend to Argentina to have an affair, while he was in the semi-Presidential spotlight.  And he thought that he might get away with it. And of course there's an actual President who thought that a 21-year-old, starstruck intern would keep her mouth shut.

If one has any faith in the rationality of man, one has to think that the higher degree of scrutiny politicians are subjected to would deter such behavior.  I guess there's an offsetting "rock star" quotient that might give more opportunities for affairs than the average person.  But again, most of these aren't just average, everyday affairs of the Jim Bunn or Tim Hutchinson variety.  They're stunning displays of hubris and stupidity.

So I find it really, really disturbing that so many people who are in charge of so many important things -- potentially even with a finger on a nuclear trigger -- display such amazingly poor judgment so frequently.  On the other hand, I guess it also explains a lot.

(3) As a good friend just quipped, Republicans need to consider adding a "keep it in your pants" pledge to the "no taxes" pledge.

UPDATE:  Tom just posted Jenny Sanford's statement, which is simply fantastic.  And I guess this explains why his family didn't know, and it raises the possibility that he didn't travel to Argentina just to have an affair; it could have been to end things (of course, a telephone call would have raised fewer suspicions).  I don't think my bottom line is changed any though -- its amazing the number of politicians in the national spotlight who feel they can get away with stuff like this.

UPDATE2:  Aaaaand Sanford wrote e-mails to his paramour from his government account, which a newspaper has obtained.  Apparently Sanford was carrying on while he was being considered as a Vice Presidential candidate.  And apparently ellipses are the only form of punctuation in Argentina.

Wow. South Carolina Governor Mark Sanford's press conference wasn't like watching a car wreck, it actually was a car wreck - and an end-over-end NASCAR flame out at that.  It was made all the more mesmerizing by the seven-minute long rambling introduction, the sincere emotion in his apologies, and the clear realization on his part that his willingness to publicly come clean and "let the chips fall where they may" was a thinly disguised euphemism for "snuff out my political career."

He is done in national politics. Not simply because of the affair, mind you, but because of the way he disappeared without warning, misled his staff, and ultimately violated the public trust.

There really isn't much more to it than that. Except perhaps the age old lesson which never seems to get learned despite all of the spectacular self-immolations we've seen over the past few years from Clinton to Vitter to Edwards to Ensign:  if you want to get into politics at the national level and stay in politics, keep the zipper closed.

In an interview on Fox News, SC GOP Chair Katon Dawson called Governor Sanford's announcement "sad and disappointing," adding that it was a "tremendous blow" to South Carolina GOP .  Dawson also referred to Sanford's admission as "game changer." When pressed by host Martha McCallum whether Dawson was going to call for Sanford's resignation, Dawson demurred, though he did say that the "chips fall pretty quickly in South Carolina."

In a meandering opening statement, an emotional Gov. Mark Sanford (R-S.C.) just announced to reporters: "I've been unfaithful to my wife." He said in recent years, he developed a relationship with "dear, dear friend" from Argentina.

He will step down as chairman of the Republican Governors Association.

The press conference continues, you can watch live here.

UPDATE: Yep, dead as a door nail.

It seems some "senior administration officials" are floating a balloon to kill off Obama's hot dog diplomacy:

The Obama administration is seriously considering not extending invitations to Iranian diplomats for July 4 celebrations overseas, senior administration officials tell CNN.

The officials said intense discussions on the issue were taking place, but the final decision had not been made.

This news comes just hours after Newt Gingrich blasted Obama for said hot dog diplomacy in an interview with the Washington Times:

"He can't even bring himself to disinvite the Iranians from the Fourth of July party to celebrate a declaration which said all men are endowed by their creator with certain inalienable rights, among which are life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness.

So we're going to celebrate the declaration of independence on the Fourth of July with Iranian torturers, murderers and the State Department says itself, the leading state sponsor of terrorism on the planet. I just think when you see an administration that is that weak, he may give [former Democratic President] Jimmy Carter a renewed reputation for strength."

Interesting. The Oregonian reports Democratic Governor Ted Kulongoski went "nose-to-nose Tuesday with fellow Democrats in the Oregon Legislature, vetoing two education spending bills and leaning on Republicans for help sustaining his decision."

Kulongoski wants to make sure more money remains in the state's rainy day fund because he fears a revenue shortfall next year of $400-500 million.

Democratic House Speaker Dave Hunt offered a charmingly blunt response to the Governor:

"It was a quick, cordial veto," Hunt said. "We will do a quick, cordial override."

Republican State Treasurer Kay Ivey officially announced her candidacy for Governor of Alabama this morning. She joins Greenville businessman Tim James, former Chief Justice Roy Moore, former two-year college Chancellor Bradley Byrne, and state Rep. Robert Bentley.

On the Democratic side Congressman Arthur Davis and State Ag Commissioner Ron Sparks are in the race.

New poll from Texas Lyceum shows Governor Rick Perry with a twelve-point lead over Kay Bailey Hutchison:

Republicans
Perry 33
Hutchison 21
Berman 1
No Opinion/Don't Know 45

To say the race is wide open on the Democratic side would be an understatement:

Democrats
Friedman 10
Schieffer 6
Van de Putte 3
No Opinion/Don't Know 81

A couple of housekeeping notes: Rep. Leo Berman said yesterday he is going to bow out of the GOP primary, and Democrat Leticia Van de Putte also announced she would not run. Meanwhile, Democratic lawyer Tom Schieffer is officially lauching his bid for Governor today, declaring at a rally in Ft. Worth last night that after eight years under Perry the Lone Star state is "literally on the road to disaster."

Finally, the Texas Lyceum poll records Governor Perry's job approval rating at 57%, while Senators Cornyn and Hutchison's are at 55% and 65%, respectively.

RELATED: In an interview with blogger John Hawkins, Governor Perry addressed the secession brouhaha from a few months ago:

Here's what I really think about the issue. It was an effort by the mainstream media to deflect from the discussion, the debate, and the intellectual engagement on the 10th Amendment. They are scared to death to debate and to talk about the 10th Amendment. So therefore, they try to find this side issue. The side issue for them was that an individual at one of the tea parties said, "secede."

I mean we sell t-shirts in Texas that have that on it all the time. Come on. It's a part of the Texas mystic. It is part of what we pride ourselves on in the state of Texas. We're able to say, "You know what, we're different. We were a republic on our own. We left the country at one time."

Now if a bunch of pointy-headed lawyers want to go have the discussion over whether it can happen again -- I'll let them do that. The fact of the matter is that I don't want to secede. I want to help America heal itself. I want to help get this country back on track and I happen to think our state can help lead that effort.

So, those that want to go off on this rabbit trail of saying "Oh my gosh, he actually almost, almost darn near said the word succession. Isn't he a strange one?" Well, that's just a deflection from the real issue.

Buried in this story in today's Las Vegas Sun about John Ensign you find a really eye-popping statistic:

Gov. Jim Gibbons' approval rating is lower than the state's unemployment rate, 10 percent and 11.6 percent, respectively.

It doesn't get much worse than that, although David Paterson (see Sean's post below) is running a close second in the "Most Beleagured Governor in America" contest.

Mouse, not Kaus. It's hard to characterize a week shepherding three kids through the mob at Disney World in blazing heat as a "vacation," but that's what I was doing all last week. And here I thought the Magic Kingdom would be sparsely populated, but apparently no one got the memo that we're in the midst of the worst global recession in more than half a century.