BOB SCHIEFFER: This seems to go beyond just the fact that, you know, he became involved in this relationship. He was basically missing in action for five days. ... Isn’t this more than just a sex scandal here? I mean, this is dereliction of duty, isn’t it? GOV. HALEY BARBOUR: You know, Bob, I don’t know all the details. But I’ve been in politics a long time. I’ve made it my policy, I just don’t talk about people’s personal problems. I don’t-- I don’t think it’s appropriate, I don’t think it’s polite, and I don’t think it-- it achieves any purpose.

Here's Mississippi Governor Haley Barbour, the ethically challenged incoming chairman of the Republican Governors Association, on Face the Nation yesterday

Note that Schieffer never asked Barbour to comment on Sanford's personal life. In fact, Schieffer was referring to Sanford's public lapses, not his private ones -- yet Barbour still refused to answer.

Of course, the other thing about Barbour's non-answer is that it was a complete lie. He was more than happy to discuss President Clinton's sexual misconduct in quite graphic terms. Here he is on September 15, 1998, appearing on Fox's "Special Report with Brit Hume":

HALEY BARBOUR: And now we have this president who treated Monica Lewinsky in such a way that it makes prostitution look dignified and ennobling. I mean, he made her a sex toy, a sex object. And now what do these women say? That it doesn't make any difference? The American people hear that with a voice louder than a bolt of lightning and thunder when these same people never say one word about the way that this young woman was treated, when they've spent their whole careers complaining about it when it was the president of a company or a Republican Senator or a possible judge? The public sees through that like nothing you ever saw.

It never fails with them.