Its crud like this that hurts the GOP and conservatives everywhere.

If you don't love your spouse or meet someone you love more or have a stronger connection with then divorce them and move on. Granted you're not supposed to divorce in many social Conservatives mind but that's not really realistic. People get married for the wrong reasons, get married too fast, or simply grow apart as the years move on.
It's best if you can find someone you can grow old with but that doesn't always happen.

Its important to either adhere to your professed mores, or not to profess mores you don't think you can adhere to. Nobody like a hypocrite, and that is the problem every time a "conservative" gets caught in some scandal. It doesn't hurt the Liberals because they have no morals, and never really profess to having them to begin with.

The man is human however and who he really has failed is not the GOP, not the state of SC (unless the tryst was paid for with SC funds), nor anyone else but his family. It doesn't make him less capable of a Governor (again hinging on use of taxpayer funds), it doesn't whole sale invalidate his positions.

See that is where we give up too easily. We allow the Liberals to use ad hominem attacks upon conservative candidates, "this guy/gal had an affair so therefore their policies and ideas suck and are completely invalid." and we buy into it along with the moderates.

Conservatives need to get their act together or 2012 will be a "no contest" based merely on "the devil we know rather than the devil we don't".

Did he commit adultery with Argentine president Cristina Fernandez de Kirchner?

And here we thought he might be aiming for the US Presidency when it was the Sec. of State position he was going for.

"Burnishing"

I don't think it was "foreign affairs" he was burnishing.

Good grief. Whenever the democrats put themselves on the ropes, republicans immediately punch themselves in the testicles.

Oh, gee, another whingefest entitled "Why do we GOPers always get called on our "family values" BS when those Dirty Dems never get called on it?!" Oh, WAAAAHHH. Makes one wonder how Reagan, to this date the only divorced US President, escaped the "HYPOCRISY!" tag. Or, for that matter, how Sarah Palin can shrug off charges of being a bad parent due to her daughter Bristol getting pregnant.

See, I can be emotional (what fun!). Of course, being emotional like that steers oneself away from real GOP failings. Ask yourself this: We all know Dem politicians that have done business dealings that have screwed over the working folks they call their 'base.' Yet those Dems (like, say, Barney Frank) rarely-to-never get called out on it. Why is that?

Or, more to the point, why do Republicans and conservatives have media problems?

It doesn't matter what the Dem's get away with due to their progressive moral principles. What matters is what Conservatives do, and the fact is that if you'll cheat on your family, you'll cheat me and the government. Both Ensign and Sanford need to quietly retire from public life and get themselves in order. They absolutely cannot cheat, lie and betray people in their private lives, and then be "effective" in their political jobs. It doesn't work that way. They are flawed individuals and not deserving of the public trust.

What does this?

(1.) Pornified culture and grass-is-greenerism;
(2.) Anonymity-by-numbers, which creates an illusion of privacy, preventing the individual from becoming aware of the actual impossibility of long-term privacy in modern society;
(3.) Lack of popular religious devotion in culture which might lead to training in self-control and self-denial;
(4.) Lack of cultural "fences" around contact and behavior which, while itself innocent, sets the stage and creates the opportunity for moral error;
(5.) The failure of a man, in his saner moods, to recognize his own inherent weakness and implement CYA, keep-me-straight, flee-from-sin policies to compensate.

Under item (1.) there is the passing thought of the married man that sex and love and passion could be better than they are, a thought amplified by quivering hardbodies everywhere a man looks, and by pop-culture glorification of unbridled passion which never depicts the inglorious and tragic aftermath.

Under item (2.): In a village, everyone knows everyone's business, and everyone knows his business is known. When tempted, a man does not expect to "get away with it"; he expects it to "get out" and is surprised if it doesn't. But in modernity, we are "all alone in a crowd." The sense that we are alone tricks us into thinking we have privacy for our sins. In reality, the moment someone decides they want to know what we are up to, there's no place to hide.

Under item (3.): Is anyone under the illusion that Sanford had developed in himself the kind of mind that looks for opportunities to share in the suffering of Christ? Some call a man who fasts out of solidarity with the hungry a fool; but if Sanford's marriage is a good one, he's the fool to jump ship; and if it's a bad one, he needs to learn to carry his cross daily and thank God that God has counted him worthy to suffer in that way. Such notions are foreign to the modern mind, but then our ancestors were wiser than we.

Under item (4.): What on earth was a man doing, having any friendly meeting with a woman not his wife, when his wife was not present? What on earth was a man doing, corresponding with any woman not his wife, without his wife's input and approval in each note? In a more "Victorian" or "Puritan" culture, we'd be happier, for of course those cultures looked askance at such technically innocent interactions: They knew human nature better than we, and knew that sin doesn't come where the opportunity is absent.

Under item (5.): Every man has his "price." I do, you do. You will betray all who love you, and your deepest convictions, if you are pushed to your breaking point of frustration (or even to a level of moderate discontent) in the world of good and licit things, and then suddenly offered a strongly-desired, perfectly-fitting, better-than-you-had-ever-hoped-for, illicit thing.

The trick is to know this, and to implement unvarying policies that ensure that (a.) you aren't likely to encounter your "price," (b.) if you ever meet "your price" you run the other way immediately and don't have opportunities for a second glance at the merchandise, and (c.) there are several someones who'll be nearby, who'll observe any false move you make, and who'll hold you accountable for it.

This is the truth: The truth about men, known to all who bother to know it, and unchanged since before the authoring of Proverbs 2:11-19.