Now that we know Mark Sanford cheated on his wife, I want to know who leaked the e-mails to The State Newspaper and further more I want to know why The State didn’t try harder to break this story. They were sent e-mails documenting an affair from two legitimate e-mail addresses and they didn’t do anything besides send a message and wait for a reply? That just defies reason. I think it speaks to how cowed the media is in general and even more so in Republican dominated South Carolina. Never the less, kudos to reporter Gina Smith and The State for tracking Sanford down at the airport and finally breaking the story. Smith by the way did an excellent job as a guest last night on The Rachel Maddow Show.

My hunch is that Jenny Sanford leaked those e-mails and probably was wondering why it took so long to come out. Apparently Jenny and Mark spent the day together and maybe they can work things out. I do feel sympathy for his family, especially his kids. I can’t even imagine what hell it must be for them right now. But…for the life of me I can’t muster much empathy for Sanford. Perhaps because he has seemed to lack any empathy for poor folks and poor kids attending run down schools in South Carolina, unemployed folks, pretty much anyone who isn’t white and rich. I still can’t figure out why he would want to be governor knowing he’s practically powerless and seemingly incapable of working with his own party to reach consensus on anything. It’s telling that his own staff allowed him to hold that news conference yesterday. Bill Press said this morning on his radio show that it was clear that his staff hates him because they allowed him to hold a news conference right after he got off that long flight and they set up the conference in the middle of the lobby of the state capitol. Kind of hard to miss those African American tourists in the back ground behind Sanford, cracking up and mugging for the cameras during his heartfelt apology. The whole news conference was a train wreck, the fact that he didn’t prepare a statement, set up in the lobby and took questions! This was ill advised at best and political suicide at worst.

One thing I hope will come out of this mess, vain hope that it may be is that the Republican Party will come off their moral high horse and stop pretending that the Grand Old Party is a moral authority and that their politicians are somehow role models of decency. Adultery is adultery and it sucks weather you are John Edwards or Mark Sanford. Jon Stewart on last night’s Daily Show summed it up by saying that Sanford was another conservative politician with a liberal penis. Gail Collins in the NY Times asks for an apology from the GOP for the impeachment of Bill Clinton, she writes that the evidence is clear that sexual stone throwing has consequences. Joy Behar advised Sanford and others not to spit up in the air because your spittle might come back on you.

My favorite theory about why Mark Sanford committed adultery comes from Rush Limbaugh. He blames (who else) President Obama for making Governor Sanford feel hopeless about the future of our country and causing him to throw caution to the wind and give in to his sexual desires. No matter that Obama took office in November and Sanford’s been admiring Maria’s tan lines since last July…maybe he was worried that Obama would win and that caused his eye to wander.

The sad truth is that it doesn’t really matter if Sanford stays in office or not. He’s a big giant nothing and Lt. Gov. Andre Bauer would be worse because he would spend the entire last year of Sanford’s term currying favor with senior citizens and spending our money on his lifestyle to ensure his election as Governor. Just let Sanford stay in office and twist slowly in the wind. At this point we have nothing to lose.