The Gaggle is usually a blog focused on politics, but we’d be remiss not to mention some of the moments when Washington intersects with pop culture. To mark Michael Jackson’s sudden death this afternoon, your Gaggler thought it might be appropriate to remember the King of Pop’s visit to the White House back in 1984 as a guest of Ronald Reagan. "Well, isn't this a Thriller," Reagan joked. Jackson, who was 25 at the time, was given a plaque for allowing his song “Beat It” to be used in the administration’s anti-drunk driving ads aimed at teenagers. There was no moonwalking, but Jackson was wearing his signature look of the early 1980s, including sequined socks and that one glittered glove. "I'm very very honored," Jackson said shyly, as he was interrupted by the shreiks of fans on the South Lawn. "Thank you very much, Mr. President and Mrs. Reagan."

Your Gaggler wondered yesterday if Mark Sanford would have to own up to using any state funds to either facilitate or cover up his infidelity. Now comes word via his press office that the South Carolina governor will reimburse the state for a junket to Argentina he took a year ago, which is when the affair apparently started. Here’s Sanford's statement:

As noted by the Department of Commerce, I attended a trade mission with the Department of Commerce last June. As the agenda notes, the mission was spent meeting with government and private business officials in both Brazil and Argentina. This trip was handled very professionally by the Department of Commerce, and I'm proud of their work there. However, while the purpose of this trip was an entirely professional and appropriate business development trip, I made a mistake while I was there in meeting with the woman who I was unfaithful to my wife with. That has raised some very legitimate concerns and questions, and as such I am going to reimburse the state for the full cost of the Argentina leg of this trip.

Mark Sanford's unexpected and emotional revelation of an affair yesterday has caused much hand-wringing about the future of a seemingly scandal-plagued GOP. Critics are quick to point out that the party espousing "family" values seems to be having some difficulty getting it's representatives to live accordingly. But here at the Gaggle, our memories are a little longer. We recall the days, not so long ago, when it seemed as though Democrats were the ones having trouble keeping their pants on. So we tasked our wonderful intern Aku Ammah-Tagoe to tally up who's been doing what to whom since the Wayne Hays scandal of 1976. My penchant for powerpoint graphs once again proved irresistable, so I turned the results into graphic form. (Please note, this is not an entirely scientific analysis. Politicians are grouped by year, according to when the affair/scandal was exposed.)

The first thing to note is that, according to our research, Democrats and Republicans are pretty even in terms of sex scandals since 1976. Democrats have edged ahead in recent years, but not by much (16-14 since 2000). Republicans led the way in the '80s and '90s. The other striking feature of this graph is the jump in the number of scandals this decade. We only found nine notable scandals in the '80s, compared with 30 since the turn of the century. Interestingly, the majority of these political affairs happened during the reign of arguably the most socially conservative president during the period we examined.

It's impossible to say whether affairs are more common now, or the media has gotten better at reporting on them, or the news cycle and new mediums allow for less privacy. There are potentially other factors at play too, like the fact that few Congressmen bring their families to live with them in DC these days as was common in the past. Now the pressures of fundraising drive members back to their districts whenever Congress is not in session. Perhaps these split-city lives place more strain on relationships than before. Or perhaps, as conservatives and even some feminists would argue, the overt sexualization of popular culture has altered our societal expectations of sex, its availability, and when and where it is appropriate. But I don't think there is an academically sound way to prove any of these hypotheses. Pick the one you like, and argue amongst yourselves.

One last thing to note is that just one female politician made the list: Helen Chenoweth, who admitted in 1998 to having an eight-year affair with a rancher in her home state of Idaho during the 1980s. Ironically (or maybe hypocritcally), Chenoweth was a vocal critic of President Bill Clinton during the Lewinsky scandal. So that is one out of 53, or 1.9%. Yes there are fewer women in politics overall, but this figure is a significantly smaller proportion than that. Maybe the solution to the political distraction and damage of sex scandals is simply to elect more women.

Aku's full list is after the jump. If we've missed anyone, please let us know in the comments and we'll update the graph.

The State newspaper publishes more of those Mark Sanford emails today, and now we’re getting more of the back story on how those messages were obtained and why the paper chose to not print them until now. As your Gaggler mentioned yesterday, the State reports that it had the Sanford emails since December. According to the New York Times, which has a nice write-up on the press’s handling of the affair, someone forwarded the emails to the paper anonymously. A State reporter then contacted “Maria” via her e-mail address in an attempt to confirm their authenticity, but never heard back. They apparently did not approach Sanford’s office. “What it was, was a puzzle piece that was hardly discernible,” the paper’s political editor tells the Times. But the paper didn’t really pursue it further, in part because reporters were so skeptical that Sanford might be a cheater. By their own account, Sanford was a weirdo, but an adulterer? No way. The paper still doesn’t know who sent the emails—a mystery that is indeed pretty interesting. Here’s your Gaggler’s question: Did Maria tell Sanford that reporters had contacted her? That was in December, and by Sanford’s own admission, his wife found out about the affair five months ago, in February.

BTW, today’s round of electronic pillow talk includes a mention of John McCain (Sanford talks about how he had been invited to spend some time in Aspen with the 2008 nom and how it had stirred up VP talk again); talk of their apparent first liaison at an open air dance in Uruguay (They’ll always have Punta del Este); and book recommendations (Maria gives a thumbs up to “The Age of Turbulence” by Alan Greenspan). Oh, and there’s Sanford’s odd movie recommendation: “The Holiday,” that Cameron Diaz/Jude Law/Kate Winslet chick flick about couples who fall in love on a holiday but live thousands of miles apart. “It’s music was pleasant and made me think of you—its mood and the notion of a holiday (wrapped up in our case over two days) certainly fit as well,” Sanford writes.