The State continues its terrific reporting on the Sanford scandal, paints a portrait of a staff privately panicking over the location of their boss, but publicly covering up their concern:

Sanford’s office couldn't locate missing governor

E-mails, phone calls outline efforts to contact, cover for AWOL leader



Gov. Mark Sanford’s chief of staff, Scott English, called the governor’s cell phones 15 times during the governor’s secret trip to Argentina to visit his lover last month. But the governor never picked up.

So how did the South Carolina Republican's staff handle the situation? Naturally, they lied:

Meanwhile Sanford’s communications director, Joel Sawyer, worked to minimize the fact the governor had been out of touch with his staff for about four days. Records released Monday show Sawyer juggled e-mails and media calls from around the nation, giving a consistent message that was later proven to be untrue.

Pause for a moment to consider the reality of what happened: Mark Sanford's staff had no idea where he was. Instead of admitting that they had no idea where in the world the governor might be, they decided to lie about his whereabouts.

In so doing, the staff not only risked putting Sanford in jeopardy -- imagine if instead of goofing off in Argentina with his mistress he had actually been in physical danger for some reason -- but they also risked creating a constitutional crisis in South Carolina. What if something had happened in the state -- a wild fire, or some other natural disaster -- that required gubernatorial action. With Sanford AWOL, would they have simply forged his signature? Would they have trotted out a look-alike, as in the movie Dave?

The more you think about it, the more breathtaking Mark Sanford's lapse was. In any other job, he'd have been fired for going AWOL. But thanks to South Carolina Republican Party, Sanford has gotten off with nothing more than a bit of self-inflicted public embarrassment.