South Carolina Gov. Mark Sanford (R) will return to work today, the Columbia State reports, "cutting short a mysterious hiking trip along the Appalachian Trail" if that's where he's really been.Did you follow that? Argentina by way of Minneapolis via the Atlanta Airport from the Appalachian Trail with a quick stop at a South Carolina airport.
WYFF-TV reports Sanford's state vehicle "was tracked down, not to the Appalachian Trail, but to the Hartsfield-Jackson Airport in Atlanta." A federal agent spotted Sanford in the airport boarding a plane to Minneapolis.
However, CNN has pictures of a car believed to be Sanford's but at a different airport in South Carolina. There is a sleeping bag in the back seat.
Meanwhile, Sanford's wife said yesterday she still hadn't heard from her husband and wasn't concerned, but said "he had left to have time to write." The governor's staff still insists he's on a hiking trip.
Politico says Sanford's "disappearing act is reviving an often-whispered, if rarely written, question about presidential hopefuls: Just how strange is too strange?"
Update: Returning home, Sanford tells The State newspaper that he was in Argentina, not on the Appalachian Trail as his staff had said in official statements. He said he had considered hiking the trail but wanted to do "something exotic."
"Sanford said he was alone on the trip. He declined to give any additional details about what he did other than to say he drove along the coastline."
James Patterson couldn't make this shit up.
