the buzz log

South Carolina governor Mark Sanford seemed to take every step to make revelations about his indiscreet affair global news:

1. Be MIA on Father's Day (and seven days total).
2. Don't alert staffers you're not showing up to work.
3. Throw in an Appalachian Trail red herring.
4. Have a weepy news conference admitting wrongdoing.
5. Be the former chairman of the Republican Governors Association and another 2012 self-imploding GOP possible.

In the huge outbreak of Sanford searches from the past 7 days, look-ups for "first lady jenny sanford" pushed her into the top 500 searches (bypassing her husband), as well as quirkier terms like "sanford and son," "don't cry for me argentina," and "appalachian trail map."

Now the newest round of searches: "sanford emails." The release of the rusty Romeo's electronic messages to his Argentine paramour Maria Belen Shapur have sent readers gagging and chortling at the same time (not an easy feat). Newsweek felt compelled to warn, in italics, about the super cheesy factor.

So how did the South Carolina paper, The State, get those emails so fast? Crackling investigative reporting? Hacking? RSS feed to Naughty Political Notes? Actually, according to the New York Times, the newspaper had these emails since December...yes, for six months. Naturally, reporters wanted to confirm the messages were real, so they sent an email...to Ms. Shapur. Exactly what they asked her, for instance "are you one that gives magnificently gentle kisses," was not revealed.

Of course, The State made up for that lapse by sending its reporter, based on an anonymous tip, to greet the governor when he landed in Atlanta. Her gung-ho account, on The State's website, includes her parenthetical musing, "I always will wonder if the story would have broken if I had failed to catch him in the airport." Maybe if she had tried sending another email.

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