A Perfectly Cromulent Blog

"Tall and tan and young and lovely"

"The girl from [Argentina] goes walking:"

The attorney general of South Carolina on Tuesday asked the state law enforcement division to review Gov. Mark Sanford's travel records after the governor admitted to more visits with his mistress than previously disclosed.

"In light of the governor's disclosure of additional travel today, I have requested that SLED conduct a preliminary review of all Governor Sanford's travel records to determine if any laws have been broken or any state funds misused," Attorney General Henry McMaster said in a statement.

After returning last week from a secret trip to Argentina that his staff and wife didn't know about, the Republican governor admitted to an extramarital affair and said he had seen his mistress three times in the past year.

But he told The Associated Press on Tuesday he had met with Maria Belen Chapur seven times, including five visits in the past 12 months. Sanford also told the AP he'd "crossed lines" with other women, although Chapur was the only one he had sex with.

What constitutes "crossed lines" to Sanford, I wonder? Are we talking Clintonian definitions of "sex?" Did they hold hands? Talk dirty on his government friends and family plan? Did any of those emails start with "a/s/l?"

McMaster, a Republican, has so far been reluctant to move forward with calls for an investigation into Sanford, saying he is wary of mixing legal matters with political score-settling from longtime Sanford opponents.

McMaster is running for governor next year. His opponents say his hesitancy to investigate Sanford is meant to prevent a Sanford resignation, which would elevate Lt. Gov. Andre Bauer to the top office. Bauer, also mulling a run at the governor's mansion, would then be able to run as an incumbent in next year's race.

"There's been a lot of speculation and innuendo on whether or not public moneys were used to advance my admitted unfaithfulness. To be very clear:no public money was ever used in connection with this."

Sanford spokesman Joel Sawyer confirmed Tuesday that Sanford had met with his mistress more times than he originally admitted.

Two of the meetings in the past year included multiple-night stays in New York, Sanford told the AP. Sanford told the AP he met with Chapur a third time in New York on what was intended to be a goodbye visit. Sanford was accompanied by his spiritual adviser, the AP reported.

Sanford is certainly a cad for fooling around on his wife and a hypocrite for doing the same while embracing the GOP's crumbling "family values" platform and using Clinton's extracurricular activities as an excuse to call for his resignation, but this just proves Chapur wasn't too bright either. I mean, it isn't bad enough that he's being dishonest with his family and constituents to begin with, but he has to bring a wingman to help him break up with you? The last time I tried that was when I asked my friend to suggest to a girl I was dating that I was no longer interested. I was 16.

To Peenman's credit, he refused.

Sanford also told the AP of two nonromantic encounters, including their first meeting in 2001 in Uruguay and getting coffee in New York during the 2004 Republican National Convention.

"There was some kind of connection from the very beginning," he told the AP.

Since Sanford's admission last week, there have been growing calls for him to step down, with critics saying he's not able to steer the state out of its economic crisis.

Republican Larry Grooms, who is running for governor in 2010, told CNN Tuesday that Sanford "is incapable of leading because of his behavior."

Unlike many of his colleagues in the chamber, most of whom have remained silent on the resignation question, Grooms, a key conservative ally of the governor, has been a supporter of Sanford's fiscally conservative agenda in the Senate. But Grooms said he told Sanford by phone last Thursday that he thought the governor should resign. Sanford said he disagreed.

"He indicated he believed that his only chance for redemption was to stay in office," Grooms said. "To me that doesn't serve any purpose well. That doesn't serve the people. It's not about him; it's about governing the people of the state."

To be fair, what does he have to go home to? His wife already confirmed she had known about the affair and told him to break it off. Instead, he disappeared and was subsequently found out. Even if Jenny and the four AT&T bars are still living in the Governor's mansion...well, let's just say they're probably saving a lot on A/C bills.

But in all seriousness, I almost feel for the guy. True, he parroted the same social conservative garbage as the rest of his GOP cohorts, but maybe - like many pragmatic Southern politicians, perhaps - he never really bought into it, but had little choice other than to play by the political rules laid down by Republicans decades before. Maybe he went home every day to a wife and kids who never understood the real Mark Sanford, the Mark Sanford who dreamt of idle afternoons on the shores of Ilhabela, drinking daquiris and realizing long repressed desires a hemisphere away from the scrutiny and judgment of the puritan South.

Or maybe he's just another windbag politician who thought he could get away with it. Whatever. Just thought I'd give this "compassion" thing a shot.