Top 10 Political Sex Scandals

Gov. Mark Sanford

Scandal: Year-long affair
How Outed: Press Conference

The Sanford saga began with a disappearing act. The South Carolina governor apparently left home in a black SUV on June 18 and stopped picking up his cell phone or responding to text messages and emails. He was AWOL for the better part of a week. The explanations piled up: the rising GOP star was "writing something," said his wife; he was recharging after losing a fight to refuse stimulus money, said his spokesman; he was hiking the Appalachian Trail, said his staff. When a reporter cornered Sanford in the Atlanta airport June 24, however, the governor revealed that he'd been in Buenos Aires. With South Carolina's capital buzzing with talk of impeachment, Sanford, 49, held a press conference to explain himself: he'd gone to visit an Argentinian woman with whom he'd been having an affair. Apologizing to his wife and four sons and choking up repeatedly, Sanford said he'd spent "the last five days of my life crying in Argentina," and had now ended the year-long dalliance. Sanford, a rumored 2012 presidential hopeful, said he will resign as head of the Republican Governors Association.

Read "Sanford's Sex Scandal: Assessing the Damage."