Rush: Blame Obama for AWOL Sanford

Commerce secretary didn't know where to reach guv

(NEWSER) - Mark Sanford’s recent Argentine excursion wasn’t the first time he had gone missing: His commerce secretary didn’t know where to reach him in June 2008, either, emails reveal. “Need contact number for (Sanford) ASAP,” the secretary wrote to a Sanford staffer on the 28th—a day the South Carolina governor saw his lover, he has since admitted. The email was part of 3,300 pages of communications released to the State. More»

(NEWSER) - A trove of emails from Mark Sanford's office contains no discussion of his recent disappearance or the resulting scandal, the State reports. Critics suspect the South Carolina governor is holding something back. “It’s a very legitimate suspicion,” a professor says. “Complex organizations in the 21st century are highly dependent on e-mail.” Within the innocuous emails, however, are clues to another communication system. More»

Four tricks up his sleeve to win back the public

(NEWSER) - Mark Sanford has fallen from grace, but he possesses the know-how to make his way back, writes Roger Simon of Politico. What the philandering governor has going for him:

• "He knows how to use people." Just look at his marriage: His wife ran his campaign in 1994, when they had two children under 2, and he paid her back “by betraying and humiliating her.”

Rambling missive says new 'humility' could make him better gov

(NEWSER) - In an online apology to South Carolinians, Mark Sanford asks for forgiveness and explains his decision to keep his post in an effort to become “a better person,” WLTX reports. “Close friends” suggested he’d be “of more service in whatever doors God opened next in life if I stuck around to learn lessons rather than running and hiding down at the farm,” he writes. More»

Nothing but 'disgusting politics,' she says

(AP) - Here we go again: A South Carolina lobbyist resigned from a rival political campaign yesterday and then became the second man to claim he had a tryst with Nikki Haley . Lobbyist Larry Marchant says he and Haley, who's running for governor, had a "one night indiscretion" in a Salt Lake City hotel room in June 2008, but admitted he had no proof to back up his allegation. "You can't have any evidence on a one night affair," he says. More»