By The River

The strange tale of Gov. Mark Sanford, Republican of South Carolina, got even stranger this afternoon. The governor, intercepted at the Atlanta airport by a reporter from The State, South Carolina's leading newspaper, admitted that he actually wasn't hiking the Appalachian Trail as his staff had insisted. Instead, he was in Argentina having an affair with an old friend.

Of course, he apologized to his family and said his wife knew about his Argentine firecracker. His yet unnamed girlfriend is believed to be the first Argentine to play a part in an American political scandal since stripper Annabelle "Fanne Fox" Battistella cavorted in the Washington Tidal Basin with Democratic Congressman Wilbur Mills of Arkansas in 1974. Actually, cavorting might not be the right word. She actually ran out of Mills' car after it was pulled over by the D.C. Park Police and jumped in the water. Whatever verb you prefer, It did wonders for her career, if not for that of Mills, then chairman of the House Ways and Means Committee.

Sanford can now join that other presidential wannabe Sen. Jon Ensign, R-Nevada, on a Family Values ticket in 2012, provided one of them can muscle Sarah Palin out of the way for the right to be the next Alf Landon and lose to FDR, er, Obama, by historic proportions. At least Sanford wasn't nailing a member of his own staff whose husband also was on his staff. Who do you take him for, anyway? Jon Ensign?

Someone really needs to call the Appalachian Trail Conference in Harper's Ferry, W.Va., and ask spokesman Brian King if they have a comment on all this. Sanford, incidentally, says that he hiked on the A.T. as a younger man. But then he also says he spent the weekend driving the coastline of Argentina relax. One of those pesky reporters from The State figured out that it isn't really possible to do that because there is no Argentine equivalent of Highway 1 in California.

I'm going to go set the DVR right now for tonight's sure to be classic episode of The Daily Show.