He Should Have Stuck with Email - Vice–Admiral Horatio Lord Nelson was famous, among other things, for his contention that “no man is married South of Gibraltar.” But before South Carolina Governor Mark Sanford adopted the Nelson philosophy and began his Argentine Adventure, he should have checked to see if his wife was a nautical woman.

Here in the Commonwealth, things have been quiet on the adultery front since Gov. Robb and his beauty queen crew last set sail in a hot tub. Other than the occasional disagreement regarding last names and how many commoners can visit the mansion, matrimony has been smooth sailing in Richmond.

I’ve worked with politicians in Virginia and elsewhere and I’ve never had to handle an adultery scandal. Other than the occasional indictment (one acquittal, two guilty), it’s been mostly accusations of not raising taxes, voting to roast orphans or being a Christian.

Still one doesn’t have to be part of Eliot Spitzer’s pit crew to know there were missteps during the Sanford news conference last week. A brief list would include:

Try not to broadcast your abasement from the Ringling Brothers, Barnum & Bailey big top. The only element missing was the tiny car filled with Shriners.

Ask the albino with the cell phone camera not to take pictures from immediately behind you.

Since Sanford broke God’s law, PR law and maybe Burke’s Law, the confession news conference is no place to complain about the strictness of the 10 Commandments regarding fidelity.

Don’t call your hot patootie a “dear, dear friend” and say there was “something real” with her as opposed to that 20–year stretch of fakery with your wife and four sons.

Don’t use earning your hiking merit badge as a cover for meeting Charro to hike up her skirt.

Even in our debauched culture, choosing the Father’s Day weekend for a getaway with the Queen of the Pampas is a poor juxtaposition.

Do you get the impression Mark Sanford doesn’t appear to be wrapped too tightly? Calling him erratic is being kind. This is a “husband” who, after his wife finds out about the affair four months ago, repeatedly asks for permission to see the Other Woman. That’s either chutzpah or a death wish. But it gets better, because after his suffering wife gives in and grants permission for the visit, he hauls his “spiritual advisor” along to chaperone.

We don’t know what Sanford told Ms. Hot Tamale, but it was not “goodbye.”

What a waste. Sanford could have saved time, money and avoided antagonizing his wife if he had merely consulted the Magic 8 Ball regarding this final fling instead of dragging the “spiritual advisor” along. When I met with my Magic 8 Ball to see if I should ask the wife’s permission to visit the mistress one last time (just kidding, Janet) the three answers I got were: “outlook not so good,” “ask again later” and “my sources say no.”

Sage advice from an inanimate object.

This week we learn Sanford not only had multiple paramours, he also evidently has a multiple “spiritual advisors.” Traveling outside the U.S. with this good time group, he admitted he “crossed lines” with other women over the years as he tried to “blow off steam” in a way that sounds suspiciously like lap dances and heavy petting.

Still I suggest you don’t count on Sanford resigning as governor. He’s obviously immune to embarrassment and merely being shunned by decent folk and ridiculed by the media is not going to make an impression. Besides he has Sen. Lindsay Graham (R–Flexible Backbone) saying he thinks Sanford deserves a second chance from the voters.

Unfortunately, Graham will soon learn Sanford runs through second chances like Michael Jackson ran through prescriptions. In fact Governor Gonad cashed in the second chance his wife gave him for a ticket to Passion on the Pampas.

Meanwhile Sanford intends to concentrate on doing his job as governor just as soon as he finishes getting an accurate count for the media of the women he’s had dalliances with over the past decade. And now that his wife has removed all the extraneous female distractions, maybe he can.

Sanford certainly won’t be distracted by a run for President. He joins Sen. John Ensign as the second potential 2012 GOP candidate to suffer from a career–killing dose of testosterone poisoning.

I’m not sure Sanford has learned anything from events of the past two weeks, but it’s been an eye opener for me. Now I know the reason so many politicians refuse to support funding for abstinence education: They know they’re too weak to turn anyone down and they assume the rest of us are, too.

Image Courtesy of DayLife - AP Photo - South Carolina Governor Mark Sanford ponders a question as he admits during an interview with The Associated Press that there were more encounters with his Argentine mistress than he previously has disclosed, in his office Tuesday, June 30, 2009, in Columbia, S.C.

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