Update, 1:00 PM: Not surprisingly, as Politico reports, there is more to the story: With news of the affair and bizarre cover-up, down goes Sanford. Very sad.
Republican South Carolina Governor Mark Sanford did what? For eccentricity’s sake, I almost want to hear someone uncover more to the story than the governor of a state dashing off to South America on a whim without telling anyone.
Or maybe we’re just left to wonder why his staff told the media he really was hiking along the Appalachian trail (and may have “flat out lied” about the Argentina story).
To think, just last week I was musing about a possible presidential candidate to support for 2012, and Mark Sanford by default rose to the top of the unofficial and utterly inconsequential list. Now, perhaps, not so much. I’m not exactly sure what the public’s threshold for strange behavior in a potential commander-in-chief is.
When Democrat Colorado Governor Bill Ritter takes week-long international jaunts, he does so during crucial budget debates or travels first class on the taxpayers’ dime. But at least Ritter let people know where he was going.
Simply weird.
Complete speculation, but if he wanted to go to Argentina without a security detail, I can understand not telling the world where he was going. That doesn’t explain his wife and Lt. Gov. not having a clue, though.
Or not! 😐