"The bottom line is this: I have been unfaithful to my wife ... I hurt a lot of different folks. And all I can say is that I apologize."
South Carolina Governor Mark Sanford has a way with words, especially when those words are "I'm sorry." After returning from a mysterious weeklong disappearance from his state in June 2009 (at first his staff famously claimed he was hiking the Appalachian Trail), the 49-year-old confessed to an extramarital affair with a woman in Argentina and offered apologies to no fewer than five groups of people: his family, staff, friends, people of faith and "anybody who lives in South Carolina." The apology tour continued that week during a meeting with his cabinet and, in case anyone didn't get the message, in a column he wrote the following month in South Carolina's largest newspaper. His torrent of regrets may not have been good enough as of early December 2009, state legislators were discussing whether Sanford should be impeached.
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