Speaking of other shoes to drop, the State newspaper down in South Carolina has published a series of emails between Gov. Mark Sanford and the woman in Argentina with whom he had an affair. The woman, identified only as “Maria,” refused to talk one of the paper’s reporters today when approached at her home in Buenos Aires, but the governor’s office doesn’t dispute the content of the emails, which date back to roughly one year ago. In the story, the State discloses that it's been in posession of the emails since December. (Oh really? What's the backstory there?) Warning: These emails are super cheesy, even for your Gaggler who will own up to watching the occasional episode of Days of Our Lives. (The guy who played Chris Kositchek now playing Roman? What is that about?) Here’s an excerpt of one Sanford love email to his beloved. Don’t say we didn’t warn you:

Two, mutual feelings .... You have a particular grace and calm that I adore. You have a level of sophistication that so fitting with your beauty. I could digress and say that you have the ability to give magnificent gentle kisses, or that I love your tan lines or that I love the curve of your hips, the erotic beauty of you holding yourself (or two magnificent parts of yourself) in the faded glow of the night’s light - but hey, that would be going into sexual details...

Three and finally, while all the things above are all too true - at the same time we are in a hopelessly - or as you put it impossible - or how about combine and simply say hopelessly impossible situation of love. How in the world this lightening strike snuck up on us I am still not quite sure. As I have said to you before I certainly had a special feeling about you from the first time we met, but these feelings were contained and I genuinely enjoyed our special friendship and the comparing of all too many personal notes...

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.

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February 2009: Gov. Mark Sanford and his wife Jenny arrive at the White House to attend a dinner hosted by President Obama in Washington (Pablo Martinez Monsivais / AP)

Mark Sanford's wife Jenny has just released a statement announcing that she asked her husband to leave for a trial separation two weeks ago. (Your Gaggler, was actually quite pleased to not see her at the press conference today. It's always distressing to watch a humiliated wife cower by her husband's side while he announces infidelity and grasps his remaining strands of dignity.) Mrs. Sanford says her biggest worry about the affair is the "potential damage" it will do to her children. In a classy statement, she writes that she "reached a point where I felt it was important to look my sons in the eyes and maintain my dignity, self-respect, and my basic sense of right and wrong." Mrs. Sanford is willing to forgive her husband and welcome him home, if he is prepared to work on their marriage with "with a true spirit of humility and repentance."

The full text of the statement is after the jump.

It's official: If DC pundits consider you a contender for the GOP nomination in 2012, then it's just a matter of time before you are publicly humiliated (or sent to China.) Seriously. In light of Sanford's stunning admission of an affair today, let's take stock:

• Governor Kenneth the Page, um I mean Bobby Jindal: The Louisiana Governor was a bright spot in a gloomy Republican landscape early this year. But it didn't last. Jindal delivered the Republican response to Obama's speech to a Joint Session of Congress in February, and it was, well, a bit weird. Your Gaggler has seen Jindal speak several times. He's usually engaging, serious and forceful. But that night, he was just plain goofy - all smiles and vocal inflections. The response, which prompted comparisons to (and a very funny video by) 30 Rock's Kenneth the Page was pilloried by comics and critics alike. We haven't seen much from him since.
• Governor Sarah Palin: Palin made her national debut last year amid uncomfortable stories about her then 17 year old daughter's unplanned pregnancy. (No doubt a humiliating experience for Bristol.) This year the Alaska Governor has been making all sorts of unflattering headlines. There was the money she had to pay back to Alaska for trips she had taken with her children and her odd "will she-won't she" tango over her appearance at a Republican fundraiser. Then there's her spat with Levi Johnston, the father of her grandson. To top it all off, her most extensive time in the spotlight recently has been due to some crude comments made about her and her family by David Letterman. That list hardly screams "presidential."
  
• Senator John Ensign: Can you believe that just one week ago we were discussing the affair of a different GOP presidential contender? Ensign's six month long dalliance with a campaign staffer, who was married to one of his Senate staffers sounded bad enough. But add to that sordid details like that he was essentially blackmailed into admitting the affair, and the sound you will hear is the death knell for his fledgling presidential aspirations.
  
• Former Speaker Newt Gingrinch: We're not sure this one qualifies as humiliating per se, but it was pretty darn awkward. Gingrinch made headlines recently when he accused Obama's Supreme Court Nominee Sonia Sotomayor of being a racist. He soon had to recant his words.
• Utah Governor John Huntsman: Now this guy seems to have been entirely above board. No debauchery to report about Huntsman, but that may have been his problem. Obama sent the appealing, squeaky clean, Mandarin speaking Huntsman as far away from the Iowa caucuses as he could: China. Huntsman is now U.S. Ambassador there, where he's working for the man he may have rivaled, and is conveniently out of the political headlines.

In an emotional press conference this afternoon, South Carolina Gov. Mark Sanford admitted that he had been cheating on his wife with a woman in Argentina, where he had been secretly vacationing the past six days. Sanford, who announced he was resigning his post as chairman of the Republican Governors Association, repeatedly apologized to his wife and kids and to his staff, whom he admitted misleading about his whereabouts. The governor’s aides told reporters yesterday that Sanford was hiking the Appalachian Trail, when in fact he was in Buenos Aires. “I’ve been unfaithful to my wife, and I developed a relationship with what started as a dear dear friend from Argentina,” Sanford said, tearfully.

Sanford insisted the affair began “innocently” with casual emails and phone calls—the woman had apparently sought Sanford’s advice on her own marital troubles. But their relationship developed into something more about a year ago, the governor said. He said he had seen the woman three times since then and that he had spent the last five days in Argentina “crying.” The governor told reporters that his wife and family had been aware of his affair for about five months and that he had spoken to his father-in-law about it before he left for Buenos Aires last week. Asked if he and his wife are separated, Sanford seemed to struggle for an answer. “I guess in the formal sense we’re not,” he finally said. Sanford, who had been repeatedly mentioned as a 2012 GOP presidential contender, was asked if he would resign from the governor’s office. He didn’t answer. “I’ve let down a lot of people,” he said. “And that’s the bottom line.”

Did the White House plant questions at President Obama’s news conference yesterday? The Washington Post’s Dana Milbank has a good write-up explaining the whole dust-up about Obama’s decision to call on a blogger from the Huffington Post who had apparently been asked to attend the presser Tuesday by administration officials. Nico Pitney, who has been blogging about the election in Iran, was escorted to a front line position by an Obama press aide just moments before the president himself came to the podium. To the surprise of many reporters in the room, Pitney got to ask the second question. (The first went to the Associated Press, which is WH tradition.)

“Nico, I know that you, and all across the internet, we’ve been seeing reports coming directly out of Iran,” Obama said. “I know there may actually be questions from people in Iran who are communicating through the Internet. Do you have a question?” Indeed, Pitney did—as White House officials already knew. While Pitney says there was "no guarantee" he'd get a question, Obama aides told him "they thought the president might be interested in getting a question from an Iranian." What happened yesterday was perhaps the most obvious attempt at stagecraft we’ve seen from the Obama White House, but it was by no means a new development.
 
As your Gaggler has written before, the White House plots out in advance who Obama will call on in hopes of getting out certain talking points