Feet Of Clay: South Carolina's Sanford Admits Affair, Resigns As GOP Association Chairman
Republican Governor Mark Sanford of South Carolina admitted Wednesday to an affair, and resigned his position as chair of the Republican Governor's Association following a strange week in which the governor dropped off the grid and could not be located.
“I have been unfaithful to my wife. I developed a relationship with what started out as a dear, dear friend from Argentina,” Sanford said in a rambling and often emotional news conference at the state capital in Columbia.
“I’m a bottom line kind of guy I’m just gonna lay it out. It’s gonna hurt and I’m going to let the chips fall where they may,” Sanford said.
Sanford apologized to his wife, Jenny, and his children:“To Jenny, anybody who has observed her over the last 40 year of my life knows how closely she has stood by my side in campaign, after campaign, after campaign,” he said.
“I’ve let down a lot of people, and that’s the bottom line,” he said.
Sanford said his family did know about the affair before his trip to Argentina, and that he had spoken with his father in law about the situation
Asked if he and his wife had separated, Sanford responded, “I don’t know how you want to define that. She’s there, I’m here.”
“What I did was wrong, period,” he said. “I spent the last five days crying in Argentina.”
The governor said that his staff did not deserve blame for giving misleading statements about his whereabouts to the press - first that he was off writing and then that he was hiking the Appalachian Trail. “That’s my fault in shrouding this larger trip,” Sanford said. “I just said, ‘Hey guys, this is where I’m gonna go.’ ”
The announcement was the latest twist in a story that began as a mystery but now has turned into a fiasco for Sanford, whose staff provided a series of increasingly confusing cover stories when his whereabouts became the subject of global news coverage.
“I don’t know how this thing got blown out of proportion,” the governor told The State newspaper of Columbia, S.C., after he landed at the Atlanta airport Wednesday morning.
Sanford, a conservative Republican who had a promising future in national politics, is now not only the butt of jokes but has serious questions to answer about the bizarre series of events. Graphic courtesy Fox News.
“I have been unfaithful to my wife. I developed a relationship with what started out as a dear, dear friend from Argentina,” Sanford said in a rambling and often emotional news conference at the state capital in Columbia.
“I’m a bottom line kind of guy I’m just gonna lay it out. It’s gonna hurt and I’m going to let the chips fall where they may,” Sanford said.
Sanford apologized to his wife, Jenny, and his children:“To Jenny, anybody who has observed her over the last 40 year of my life knows how closely she has stood by my side in campaign, after campaign, after campaign,” he said.
“I’ve let down a lot of people, and that’s the bottom line,” he said.
Sanford said his family did know about the affair before his trip to Argentina, and that he had spoken with his father in law about the situation
Asked if he and his wife had separated, Sanford responded, “I don’t know how you want to define that. She’s there, I’m here.”
“What I did was wrong, period,” he said. “I spent the last five days crying in Argentina.”
The governor said that his staff did not deserve blame for giving misleading statements about his whereabouts to the press - first that he was off writing and then that he was hiking the Appalachian Trail. “That’s my fault in shrouding this larger trip,” Sanford said. “I just said, ‘Hey guys, this is where I’m gonna go.’ ”
The announcement was the latest twist in a story that began as a mystery but now has turned into a fiasco for Sanford, whose staff provided a series of increasingly confusing cover stories when his whereabouts became the subject of global news coverage.
“I don’t know how this thing got blown out of proportion,” the governor told The State newspaper of Columbia, S.C., after he landed at the Atlanta airport Wednesday morning.
Sanford, a conservative Republican who had a promising future in national politics, is now not only the butt of jokes but has serious questions to answer about the bizarre series of events. Graphic courtesy Fox News.
Labels: Feet Of Clay, Mark Sanford, RGA
posted by Mike McCarville @ 2:07 PM
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