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Sanford Learned Of Emails Hours Before Confession
We hate to kick a guy when he's down. But as we get a clearer picture of exactly how the events surrounding Mark Sanford's admission of an extra-marital affair went down, it's seeming more and more likely that the randy right-winger was still hoping to keep things under wraps -- even just hours before his dramatic announcement.
The State has put together a pretty thorough account of the back-story that led to two-timing two-termer's teary confession. The key items are these:
Tuesday 8 p.m. An anonymous caller tells The State that Sanford was seen on a flight last week from Atlanta to Buenos Aires. The newspaper, months before, had received e-mails that purported to be romantic exchanges between Sanford and an Argentine woman. The e-mails could not be authenticated at the time.
And:
About 11 a.m. The State informs the governor's office it has the e-mails that detail an extramarital relationship. Sanford already had called a 2 p.m. news conference.
So Sanford had already announced the 2pm press conference. It's possible he planned to come clean even before The State showed him the emails -- according to a source, the paper contacted both Sanford's office, and Tom Davis, his former chief of staff, who the paper had worked with before -- and made clear they had the goods on him.
But it's also very possible he planned to stick with the rather far-fetched tale he had spun at the airport: that he had planned to hike the Appalachians but decided at the last minute to go to Argentina, and that he spent the time there alone, driving along the coast. Only the emails eventually convinced him the gig was up.
Perhaps Sanford does deserve some credit for speaking with a certain degree of honesty about his feelings yesterday. But it's hard not to suspect that, if his hand hadn't been forced by the combination of the emails themselves and the tip about the flight to Argentina, we'd all still be in the dark about the true story.
Josh
Zachary
$1,000,000 internet dollars says he's still lying about breaking it off with Maria.
That yarn was spun between noon and 2 pm yesterday.
June 25, 2009 3:50 PM | Reply | Permalink
Yup. His wife had kicked him out, and wanted no contact, so he figured it was a good time to skip town for a 5-day sexcation down south. Just doesn't take 5 days to break up with someone you've supposedly just had sexual contact with 3 or 4 times.
June 25, 2009 4:34 PM | Reply | Permalink
He was booked for a 10 day stay.
June 25, 2009 9:24 PM | Reply | Permalink
Yep. I knew there was a reason I didn't buy all these "Gee, he's being so nakedly honest and hurting, this is not the usual repug sex scandal" bullshit articles (I'm looking at YOU, Gary Kamiya at Slate.)
He married an heiress to use her money for political campaigns, tied her down with four kids ASAP and went trolling for pussy.
I don't buy the one year ago line, I don't buy the real love line, I don't buy the freakazoid bullshit.
He's not hurting, he's not noble, he's not honest.
He's a classic repressed, Bible Belt, sex-obsessed, misogynistic asshole.
Bring back the stocks!
June 25, 2009 4:37 PM | Reply | Permalink
You nailed it. Perfect.
June 25, 2009 4:38 PM | Reply | Permalink
Shit. Kamiya's piece is at Salon.
June 25, 2009 4:44 PM | Reply | Permalink
You could also look @ Chris Matthews and the various [male] blowhards who reported yesterday's "confession."
June 25, 2009 4:58 PM | Reply | Permalink
You could also look at Josh Marshall, who seems to give Sanford a lot more credit for being a mensch than he deserves.
June 25, 2009 5:32 PM | Reply | Permalink
The dithering blondes on CNN were also applauding his courage and Candy Crowley admired Jenny Sanford for NOT showing up at the Capitol.
June 25, 2009 6:12 PM | Reply | Permalink
I think you are very close to the truth here. I guess it is in our nature to seek some ultimate decency of another human being. But, given this man's behavior, I see no reason to believe that his fess-up presentation was genuine. I suspect he is savvy enough to play this to his advantage. My impression is that Sanford is a self-serving individual that will say anything to protect the image he hopes to project. We will probably find this out over time. His elected political career is finished. In any event, his irresponsibility, by far, outweighs the adultery.
June 26, 2009 8:24 AM | Reply | Permalink
bingo
June 25, 2009 11:11 PM | Reply | Permalink
I'd like to see a reporter ask him when he purchased the plane ticket to Argentina. I doubt he bought it at the airport moments after deciding that he didn't want to hike the Appalachian Trail after all.
June 25, 2009 4:30 PM | Reply | Permalink
and when did he decide he needed a passport to go hiking on the Appalachian Trail?
June 25, 2009 4:35 PM | Reply | Permalink
You nailed bloke1....!
That is the smoking gun right there! CNN reported that there was a sleeping bag and a bag in the SUV that he left at the airport; so it would seem that he could have been telling the truth, that he was going to go hiking and changed his mind.
But like you said, why would he have even had his passport with him?
SMOKING GUN!!!!!
June 25, 2009 6:31 PM | Reply | Permalink
I want to know what computer he was using to type those steamy emails. I read excerpts to my husband last night, and he laughed himself silly.
Who turned them in to the papers? my money is on the wife.
June 25, 2009 4:37 PM | Reply | Permalink
Agreed. She's a woman scorned.
June 25, 2009 4:55 PM | Reply | Permalink
I'd place a bet on wife's rich, right-wing daddy.
He would have also had enough $$$$ to hire private detectives.
Or, he could have just intercepted all the goodies from the warrantless wiretaps and surveillance that all these Congresscritters were so in love with a few months ago.
June 25, 2009 5:00 PM | Reply | Permalink
Apparently his wife is the "heiress" to the Skil Tools fortune.
June 25, 2009 5:19 PM | Reply | Permalink
Read somewhere and can't find it again that it was the Argentine Bombshell's boyfriend who leaked the emails.
June 27, 2009 4:30 PM | Reply | Permalink
Zachary -- Could you take another look at the timeline, specifically:
*A reporter from The State yesterday said that they did not publish the e-mails earlier because they came in annonymously (in December) and they sent e-mail to both the Governor and to "Maria" and got no response. That was 5 months ago. So Sanford knew about the e-mails having leaked long ago.
*Sanford said yesterday that he told his wife about the affair 5 months ago.
Is it possible that the wife leaked the e-mails? Alternatively, is it possible that, once Sanford heard from The State in December asking about the e-mails, he knew the story would eventually get out so he should at least tell his wife?
How did somebody come upon the e-mails? One plausible explanation is that Sanford was logged into his account and for some reason left the room. Another person entered the room and saw what he was doing, printed them out, and mailed them to The State. That sounds like either the wife or a staffer. Has The State tried fingerprinting the paper or trying to identify the printer?
June 25, 2009 5:19 PM | Reply | Permalink
Maria also has a husband who might have gotten into her account.
June 25, 2009 9:29 PM | Reply | Permalink
my guess is that the state was only trying to verify the email addresses (as belonging to sanford and his mistress), which i would also guess they would have attempted to do in a way that wouldn't have tipped their hand.
June 25, 2009 11:23 PM | Reply | Permalink
The News Hour on PBS didn't mention or include Sanford's press conference or the reasons for it as part of their major line-up of stories. It *was* included as the last item on their reporting of the day's news, before going to their in-depth segments.
You could say that Sanford's presser began at 2:00 PM EDST; the News Hour opens at 3:00 PM, and it wasn't added into Jim Lehrer's script until the last minute. At the same time, it seems to fit the practice for Lehrer and his group to soft-pedal reporting, or questions, which could be embarrassing for conservatives.
Not suggesting conspiracy -- just that Lehrer and PBS have routinely leaned center-right because it's the position least calculated to offend the Beltway elite in D.C. And dialing down any embarrassment for the GOP has long been TNH's position as a "news" program.
June 25, 2009 5:36 PM | Reply | Permalink
I think Americans are getting too much involved with public persons private life. Not right!
In America more than any place else everything is divided in two classes being a) white or be black and nothing in between.
Let's allow all the public persons some privacy and different nuances with that day's rumors.
Too many very smart persons have been fired for no good reason. But all those Cheney spies, burrowed deep into deep of the goverment secrets. And they can hardly wait to start leaking.
Lets think about this seriously and hopefully find a way in the middle
June 25, 2009 5:45 PM | Reply | Permalink
WTF?
June 25, 2009 11:17 PM | Reply | Permalink
"I think Americans are getting too much involved with public persons private life. Not right!"
Do I want to be involved in Sanford's stupidity?
Hells no!
I got problems of my own to deal with, but when the SOB uses public money to finance his trysts, OH HELL YES I'M INVOLVED IN HIS PRIVATE LIFE!
When will these asshats use their own money to finance their own habits?
June 26, 2009 11:45 AM | Reply | Permalink
Not only that, but they try to legislate their "family values" onto the rest of us, so their "family values" ARE politically relevant.
I want to hear Sanford explain how letting gay people marry could make HIS marriage any worse in any way.
"Sanctity of marriage between a man and a woman?"
It is to laugh. To laugh hard and long. To roll on the floor laughing my ass off.
June 27, 2009 4:40 PM | Reply | Permalink
Which means that his statement that he had spent 5 days crying in Argentina, was a two fold lie.
He had intended to stay 10 days, and he had no reason to cry while he was there, as he thought that only his wife knew about the affair.
June 25, 2009 9:23 PM | Reply | Permalink
Why do I hear Andrew Lloyd Webber in my head?
June 27, 2009 4:41 PM | Reply | Permalink
"Perhaps Sanford does deserve some credit for speaking with a certain degree of honesty about his feelings yesterday."
What?
The boy is doing damage control, plain and simple.
I think it's perfectly clear Home Team had no intention of "fessing-up" as his MO indicated that he was actively keeping the whole "hiking" trip on the Down Low.
Also, the stink of his statement is that his wife dropped kicked his philandering ass out to make a decision in ten days as to whether he wanted to stay married to her, or pursue Susie rotten crotch.
In my opinion, his ass getting on the plane to Argentina was a decision against his wife, and for Susie rotten crotch.
Fess'ing up?
Please!
Ensign fess'd up only after he was being blackmailed, but Sanford, he was caught redhanded, and redfaced in a an outright lie of his own making.
He's not sorry for his illicit affair, he's sorry his ass got caught!
June 26, 2009 11:37 AM | Reply | Permalink