However, all that is in the past. Although his wife issued a statement holding out the possibility of reconciliation, the press conference made it clear that sexual indiscretion is less the big problem here than the fact that Mark Sanford is a complete loony. “I won’t begin in any particular spot,” he said, rambling on about his “love for the Appalachian Trail” (where he didn’t go) and his fondness for “adventure trips” (clearly a personal specialty).

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Then Sanford apologized to his wife, his sons, his friends, his staff, his in-laws, “anybody who lives in South Carolina” and people of faith “across the nation.” At this point, I had the terrible feeling that I was the only person in the entire country to whom Sanford was not conveying his personal regrets.

The peculiar thing about the apologies was that Sanford seemed to be under the impression that his worst dereliction of duty involved womanizing. I think I speak for us all when I say that if a governor wants to fly off for a rendezvous with his mistress, the first rule should be: leave a phone number. If you must flee to a love nest, make sure it’s one with an Internet connection.

“It was interesting how this thing has gone down,” Sanford told the assembled reporters, launching, with occasional teary asides, into an extremely boring story about how he and the unnamed Argentine had been good friends and then he tried to help her keep her marriage together, and then they started e-mailing and yadda yadda yadda. (When the governor said “I’ll tell you more detail than you’ll ever want” it was actually easy to believe him.) The whole confessional began to sound like an episode of one of those Finding Love reality shows, when the Bachelorette demands to know if her 25 suitors are all there for the right reasons.

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There are some larger lessons here. I know you’re relieved to hear that, since it is highly unlikely that anybody actually gives a fig about Mark Sanford. (Including, perhaps, his beleaguered staff, which spent the last week fending off calls from the lieutenant governor and diligently filing Sanford’s daily Twitter .)

First of all, we may want to consider the possibility that the governor’s decision to reject the federal stimulus money was not a mighty stand against government spending but instead an early sign of total nuttiness.

Second, perhaps it is time to rethink the idea of constantly electing middle-aged heterosexual men to positions of high importance.

Third, although the governor-run-amok thing is worrisome, South Carolinians can take comfort in the fact their state gives its chief executive slightly less power than a game warden.

Fourth, before this search for a presidential nominee goes any further, I’m thinking it’s time for the Republicans to apologize for putting us through the Clinton impeachment. We seem to have pretty well established that sexual stone-throwing is a dangerous sport.