Sanford Presser

Sanford is currently giving a statement about his absence.

He was in Argentina. He said there's more to the story, then apologized to his wife, four sons, in-laws, friends, and colleagues. Then he went on about being a man of faith and how God's laws are there to protect us from ourselves blah blah yawn.

Rough transcript: "The bottom line is this: I've been unfaithful to my wife with a dear, dear friend from Argentina. It begun innocently...but in this last year developed into something more than that."

And now he's asking for privacy for his family.

UPDATE 1: He is tendering his resignation as chair of the Republican Governors' Association.

UPDATE 2: He's taking questions. He's being asked if he and his wife are separated, and whether his family knew about the affair before his trip to Argentina. He says they've been "working through it for about the last five months."

UPDATE 3: He says that some Christian study group has been helping him.

UPDATE 4: He's been asked if he broke off the relationship during his trip. He says that he and the woman with whom he was having an affair had, when they first met, an "incredibly earnest conversation" about how she should get back together with her husband "for the sake of her two boys." And then they exchanged emails and kept talking for years, and then, a year ago, "it sparked into something more than that." Their affair "was discovered five months ago," and he's been "back and forth" but spent "the last five days crying in Argentina" over figuring out "how to get one's heart right in life" and he's now "committed to trying to get my heart right in life."

UPDATE 5: He's being asked if he intentionally misled his staff. And now he's getting real cagey, because that's the kind of shit for which he could get in serious legal trouble.

UPDATE 6: As Sanford walks away, reporters shout: "Are you going to resign?" but he doesn't answer. He's obviously going to try to weather the storm and remain in his position, despite his saying that he needs time to make reparations with his family (the excuse for why he resigned as chair of the RGA).

UPDATE 7: He is now being lauded for his candor. Well. If one lacks fidelity, integrity, dignity, perspicacity, competency, and decency, I guess candor does seem like quite an accomplishment.

UPDATE 8: Already everyone being trotted out by MSNBC to comment is saying the Dems shouldn't try to make political hay about this because "we had enough of that in the '90s." You know, I don't think they should make political hay of it, either, on principle, and it's a very bitter pill indeed to swallow that the party of What Are You Doing With Your Naughty Bits and With Whom? has inoculated themselves against even legitimate criticism (the hypocrisy of his Family Values politics) by being themselves panty-sniffing fucknecks.