Take me back to the ole days of a cigar. The news from South Carolina continues to get worse and worse.

Remember the ole days:

President Bill Clinton said, "there is not a sexual relationship, an improper sexual relationship or any other kind of improper relationship" which he defended as truthful because of the use of the present tense, famously arguing "it depends on what the meaning of the word 'is' is" (that is, he was not, at the time he made that statement, still having a sexual relationship with Monica Lewinsky). Under pressure from Starr, who as Clinton learned had obtained from Lewinsky a blue dress with Clinton's semen stain, as well as testimony from Lewinsky that the President had inserted a cigar into her vagina, Clinton admitted that he lied to the American people and that he had had inappropriate intimate contact with Lewinsky. Clinton denied having committed perjury because, according to Clinton, the legal definition of oral sex was mutually exclusive of "sex" per se. In addition, relying upon the definition of "sexual relations" as proposed by the prosecution and agreed by the defense and by Judge Susan Webber Wright, who was hearing the Paula Jones case, Clinton claimed that because certain acts were performed on him, not by him, he did not engage in sexual relations. Lewinsky's testimony to the Starr Commission, however, contradicted Clinton's claim of being totally passive in their encounters.

Did I think he would survive? No. Was I worried about the 3:00 a.m. call to him? Of course not.

But Gov. Sanford is different. I think the guy is losing it. Rather than limiting his continued comments to the theme that I had an improper affair, he is going off the deep end.

From The Washington Post:

Sanford stunned his state again by admitting in an interview that he "let his guard down" and had casual encounters with a handful of women before meeting the Argentine mistress he called his soul mate.

In an emotional interview with the Associated Press from his State House office yesterday, Sanford said he made physical contact with a number of women but "didn't cross the sex line" with any of them except Maria Belén Chapur. He said he first met his Argentine mistress in 2001 on the dance floor at an open-air spot in Uruguay and that they had a coffee date in New York during the 2004 Republican National Convention. Sanford recalled visiting with her five times over the past year -- more than previously disclosed -- including two romantic multiple-night stays with her in New York.

Soon after Sanford's wife found out about the affair earlier this year, the governor took a spiritual adviser with him to New York to met Chapur for what was to be their farewell visit. Sanford said that Chapur is his soul mate but that he is trying to fall back in love with his wife, Jenny.

"This was a whole lot more than a simple affair; this was a love story," the two-term governor told the AP. "A forbidden one, a tragic one, but a love story at the end of the day."

Sanford said his encounters with other women occurred on foreign trips he took with male friends to "blow off steam." The trips occurred while he was married but before he met Chapur, he said, adding that he "never crossed the ultimate line" with the women.