What goes on in the mind of Mark Sanford—politician, businessman, lover, poet, creep? On the eve of his attempted political comeback (he's running for congress), the former South Carolina Governor, who disappeared for five days while governor, claiming to be hiking the Appalachian trail, has been accused of trespassing in his ex-wife's house:
The complaint says Jenny Sanford confronted the former governor leaving her Sullivans Island home on Feb. 3 by a rear door, using his cell phone for a flashlight. Her attorney filed the complaint the next day.
The couple's 2010 divorce settlement says neither may enter the other's home without permission. Mark Sanford lives about a 20-minute drive away from Sullivans Island in downtown Charleston.
Sanford has been for a long time our favorite Damaged American Political Creep, thanks to his bizarrely heartfelt speech about being in love with the Argentine woman he was visiting during his disappearance, and also for writing the line "the erotic beauty of you holding yourself (or two magnificent parts of yourself) in the faded glow of night's light" in an email to Maria Chapur, said Argentine mistress.
Lately, however, his position has been threatened by former congressman Anthony Weiner, whose New York Times Magazine profile this weekend was a four-car pileup of damage and neuroticism, equal parts charming and repulsive. But now! Ah, how can you not be totally grossed out and yet strangely fascinated by a guy who, weeks away from possibly staging a political comeback and returning to governance, breaks into his ex's house, in the dark?
Also, what will he tell people was doing, now that he's used up his great Appalachian Trail excuse?
[Yahoo!, image via AP]