Wrap up of the Sanford press conf that just ended in case you (like me) weren't able to watch. Sorry I missed it!
http://blogs.villagevoice.com/runninscared/Sandford Admits Affair Brought Him to Argentina; Will Resign GOP Committee, But Stay GovernorBy Roy Edroso in FeaturedWednesday, Jun. 24 2009 @ 2:33PM
He starts out in a rambling account of hiking trips he took and hosted while in school. (Maybe the story will be, "Governor goes nuts on TV.")
He apologizes to his wife and four kids "for letting them down." Oh oh.
He admits the Appalachian Trail story was a "fiction" and he apologizes to "anyone who lives in South Carolina" for it, then gets more specific and apologizes to some guy who used to live in his basement, which they called Jurassic Park. The list of people whom he has "let down" grows longer and we wonder if he is in fact going to tell us what happened.
Then he talks about "God's Law" and that it isn't "a whole rigid list of do's and don'ts," it's there to "protect us from ourselves," and "people of faith" join the list he's let down.
Then boom:
"I've been unfaithful to my wife, and developed a relationship with... started as a dear dear friend from Argentina..." He obviously isn't began very innocently" in "a casual email" of "advice" and over "this last year develed into something much more that that." Then he revisited the whole long list of people he had "let down" and added that he had "hurt" them.
He resigns as chairman of the Republican Governor's Association; nothing about the Governorship.
Questions: Are he and the first Lady separated? Says he's not sure what the reporter means by that, but "I'm here and she's there."
He says he's been "workin' through this thing for the last five months" with the help of something called C Street, "a Christian Bible Study" for D.C. Jesus people; that he met the Woman in Question a little more than eight years ago. The woman was separated, and they had a "serious conversation about why should get back together with her husband for the sake of her two boys." There was a "zone" in which the relationship seemed safe because they were thousands of miles apart, but obviously that got shot all to hell last week.
Sanford comes close to tears several times, at one point saying that he has "spent the last five days crying in Argentina" and wasn't about to do it here.
He analyzes himself at length -- "If I was really putting that person first, I wouldn't have done this... I was being selfish" -- which adds to the surreality of the event. Then he walks out, with a reporter calling after him, "Will you resign as Governor?"