Jun 24, 2009 10:43 pm US/Eastern
Emails Between Sanford, Mistress Expose Affair
(CBS)
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South Carolina Gov. Mark Sanford speaks during a press conference at the State Capitol June 24, 2009, in Columbia, S.C. Sanford admitted to having an extramarital affair after returning from a secret trip to visit a woman in Argentina.
Davis Turner/Getty Images
The State newspaper on Wednesday published excerpts of personal e-mails exchanged between South Carolina Governor Mark Sanford and the woman in Argentina with whom he has been having an extramarital affair.
In one of the e-mails, Sanford calls their relationship a "hopelessly impossible situation of love."
Sanford tearfully admitted to the affair in a press conference Wednesday, after his unexplained absence caused a media firestorm. The governor led his staff to believe he was hiking the Appalachian Trail when, in fact, he was in Buenos Aires.
The woman with which Sanford has been having an affair, whom the State identified as "Maria," reportedly declined to be interviewed. The newspaper says it will publish the full e-mail exchange, which it claims it obtained in December, in its Thursday edition. It has removed the woman's personal information from the e-mails.
Sanford's office reportedly did not dispute the authenticity of the emails.
Sanford expresses romantic feelings for the woman in the e-mails, writing on July 10, 2008, "You have a particular grace and calm that I adore. You have a level of sophistication that so fitting with your beauty. I could digress and say that you have the ability to give magnificent gentle kisses, or that I love your tan lines or that I love the curve of your hips, the erotic beauty of you holding yourself (or two magnificent parts of yourself) in the faded glow of the night's light."
"Three and finally, while all the things above are all too true -- at the same time we are in a hopelessly -- or as you put it impossible -- or how about combine and simply say hopelessly impossible situation of love," Sanford continued. "How in the world this lightening strike snuck up on us I am still not quite sure. As I have said to you before I certainly had a special feeling about you from the first time we met, but these feelings were contained and I genuinely enjoyed our special friendship and the comparing of all too many personal notes ..."
He also apparently delves somewhat into politics. In the same July 10 e-mail, he writes, "The following weekend have been asked to spend it out in Aspen, Colorado with McCain -- which has kicked up the whole VP talk all over again in the press back home."
The governor conveys his frustration over the affair, calling it "ground I have never certainly never covered before," and his mistress expresses similar sentiments.
In a July 9, 2008 e-mail, the woman identified as Maria writes, "You are my love ... something hard to believe even for myself as it's also a kind of impossible love, not only because of distance but situation. Sometimes you don't choose things, they just happen... I can't redirect my feelings and I am very happy with mine towards you."
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