Is it just me or did the Governor of South Carolina injure his wife further with his public comments?

I was appalled by Mark Sanford’s weird and rambling press conference, but no one else seems to be commenting on the things that upset me.

1. When he was apologizing for hurting people, he put the mistress first, children second, then wife, and then the people of the state.

2. He publicly characterized the woman he cheated with as his “dear, dear friend” in the present tense.

3. He publicly discussed “that sparking thing” and having “his heart involved.”

4. He publicly said that he had spent the last five days crying in Argentina—WITH HIS MISTRESS! (What, after two days of rowdy sex, or crying in between bouts of rowdy sex for the whole week?)

His desire to put things right with his family, especially his marriage, seemed totally insincere to me in the face of his obvious and public heartbreak at ending the affair WHICH HE ONLY DID WHEN HE WAS CAUGHT AND TOSSED OUT.

His wife is independently wealthy and has financed a good part of his campaigns over the years. She is also his campaign strategist. No Freudians need apply as to why he wants to work this out. (And I am not assuming it is because he is such a good Christian man.)

There were no words of love for his wife in between gushing about the mistress, no words about his wife and the mother of his children as a person as all, certainly no paeans to the curve of her hips in the dark.

Why, why, why is she saying this man “deserves a second chance”?