Yep, there really WAS an Argentine firecracker at the end of Mark Sanford’s long, long trail a-windin’. It is simply wrong to enjoy this story. Even some liberal bloggers say Sanford ate the whole sandwich at today’s press conference. But it’s hard not take some enjoyment from a Swaggart-Vitter-Ensign-Craig-Sanford episode of towering hypocrisy when they’ve used religion as a political cudgel. Sanford is now back in family values mode. Whatever happened previously — and apparently a lot did — Sanford said he took his recent mystery tour merely to END his dalliance with the firecracker in person. Don’t know if he provided details of the parting.

Thanks to the indispensable Encyclopedia of Arkansas for a photograph of Annabella Battistella (Fanne Fox) whose 1974 leap in the Tidal Basin propelled her affair with U.S. Rep. Wilbur Mills into the headlines. The original “Argentine Firecracker” is believed to be living in Argentina. She’d be 73.

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PS — Sanford and Ensign are both members of a Christian Bible study group in Washington.

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