Reports: Mark Sanford's Lover is Maria Belén Chapur

Argentine media are in a froth over the Mark Sanford scandal, and have, they believe, located the woman with whom the South Carolina governor has been conducting his extramarital affair. Here's eight-year-old video that has been dug up of Maria Belén Chapur, who was, at that time, said to be an aspiring journalist:



What else do we know about Ms. Chapur? Apparently, she is a marathon runner, and is fluent in several languages: English, Portuguese, Spanish and Mandarin Chinese. She's now 43, and is the mother of two. Why do we care to know these details? Perhaps because her lover, Governor Sanford, made such a show his own supposed moral superiority to the likes of Bill Clinton. Perhaps taxpayers would like to hear more about the woman, who, with the help of their tax dollars, Sanford went to visit on "official" state business. Or, maybe we just want to know more about the woman who elicited such wonderfully romantic prose.

Whatever the reason, it is clear that this case, unlike so many recent revelations of wife-cheating government officials (Ensign, Spitzer, Craig and Clinton, to name a few), involved true love.

Writing at the Huffington Post, Bonnie Fuller had some advice for Sanford: Resign Already and Marry the Woman You Love:

So do it Mark. That's exactly what you should do. If you are truly and passionately in love with the Argentinean Maria, why ruin several lives by denying it. You're not doing your wife, Jenny, any favors by resigning yourself to a marriage that's no longer working.

Well, other than returning thousands in taxpayer funds for getaways (official or otherwise) to Buenos Aires, it is unclear what Sanford will do now. Any advice for the governor? Should he stay or should he go?


David at Paradigms Lost
David on Twitter