Governor Sanford & Wise Latina

South Carolina Governor Mark Sanford has revealed that he was having an affair with an Argentinian woman.

South Carolina's governor once cited "moral legitimacy" when he was a congressman voting for President Bill Clinton's impeachment. He became a darling of fiscal conservatives over his ideological opposition to federal stimulus cash.

Now Mark Sanford has taken a swan dive from the moral high ground.

By admitting to an extramarital affair with a woman in Argentina on Wednesday, the Republican governor makes the already-difficult end of his term-limited administration nearly untenable.

He has alienated leaders of his GOP-dominated state Legislature for years, but said recently he was finding comfort outside the Statehouse as a champion for smaller government and lower taxes.

This is particularly upsetting to me because Sanford was really someone to watch - he had attracted a lot of attention for trying to turn down Obama's stimulus package for his state and for cutting back on the size of government. I don't know how this will affect his political future.

Rel asked me recently how this stacks up against the Lewinsky Scandal and the 'Client Number 9' Scandal, and these are my thoughts.

I don't think Sanford's affair rises to quite the same level as the other (Democratically owned) scandals, and here's why. President Clinton's sexual encounters with Monica Lewinsky were with an intern, a 21-year-old enfatuated intern, with whom he could not possibly have had an actual romantic interest. It was about Clinton getting serviced.

In Sanford's case, he is involved with a full-grown contemporary woman, not a starstruck underling. Some of his emails to the Argentinian woman have been making the rounds and (if they're authentic) put the scandal in perspective.

You are my love ... something hard to believe even for myself as it's also a kind of impossible love, not only because of distance but situation. Sometimes you don't choose things, they just happen... I can't redirect my feelings and I am very happy with mine towards you.”

I'm not saying what Sanford did was morally right, I'm just putting it in perspective. It doesn't seem so salacious. Eliot Spitzer, the impeached governor of New York, was impeached because he was caught with a prostitute. Solicitation of a prostitute is a crime, period.

Another passage of Sanford's emails of note:

Lastly I also suspect I feel a little vulnerable because this is ground I have never certainly never covered before - so if you have pearls of wisdom on how we figure all this out please let me know... In the meantime please sleep soundly knowing that despite the best efforts of my head my heart cries out for you, your voice, your body, the touch of your lips, the touch of your finger tips and an even deeper connection to your soul.”

He was enraptured by a 'wise Latina' - something Democrats should understand, right?