Is anyone really surprised when a politician cheats on his wife?

God must love practical jokes. Why else would He give us guys two heads but only enough blood to use one of them at a time?

Not being able to use both heads simultaneously leads to guys doing some pretty bonehead things.

However, South Carolina Gov. Mark Sanford has to be the new champion of doing bonehead things. If you own this shirt, take it off and mail it to Sanford's (soon to be ex?) wife. You are no longer allowed to wear it because it can't possibly be true.

Sanford is the new king of idiots.

How else can you explain his decision to drop everything and rush off to Buenos Aires for a week to see his Argentinean mistress?

He didn't even take the time to tell his staff where he was going, or at least tell them all the same lie, so they could get their story straight when people started noticing they hadn't seen the governor in a couple of days.

Did he really think he could just disappear and nobody would notice? He's the governor, a public figure people are paid to follow around and ask questions. When those people go a couple of days without seeing him, they are going to want to know why.

His wife tried to help him out. She said she didn't know where he went but wasn't worried about it because he often goes off on his own and that he was just some where off on his own (she knew about the affair, she probably knew where he really was, imagine if she had said, "My husband's in Argentina having an affair." That'd be a good day at work for any reporter.)

After that it became kind of like a game of "Where's Waldo?" with everyone trying to spot the man many had expected to vie for the 2012 presidential bid.

His staff said he was hiking in the Appalachian Mountains (which are really just big hills that they named mountains prior to discovering the rest of the country and real mountains).

Then he shows up and disputes that claim, saying he had in fact left gone to Argentina, and oh, by the way, was having an affair with his mistress down there.

What kind of idiot would think no one would notice if they left the country to carry on an affair while holding office as a governor? And why did he feel the need to go all the way down there to see this woman? Doesn't he know he could have most likely gotten away with it had he just taken his secretary to a local motel like other men do?

Sanford is the second politician to come clean in the past two weeks and admit an affair (Nevada Sen. John Ensign was the other).

Both times CNN and other news networks have led with the story. Both times, I have wondered the same thing: is this really news?

Is it? Is it really news when a politician admits to having an affair? It happens so often today the bigger news story would be finding a politician who is happily married, or at the very least just married and faithful.

Politicians coming clean on their affairs are getting to the point it reminds me of another group of professionals coming clean on their dirty little secrets: baseball players and their steroid use.

On the same day the Ensign story broke, the New York Times reported Sammy Sosa was one of the 104 players to fail a 2003 drug test. I didn't even read the story, only the headline. It's not hard to guess out how the story went and really, is anyone in the world surprised Slamming Sammy used steroids to hit 609 homeruns while playing during the steroid era?

Is anyone really surprised the governor of South Carolina likes to have sex with someone other than his wife?

No one should be.

Who is going to take the fall next? These things happen in groups of three. First it was A-Rod, then Sammy. Who is next? It was Ensign, then Sanford, what politician is going to be the next to be discovered as a cheat?

I hope the next politician who is found out comes clean and says the words everyone else already knows.

"Yes, I cheated on my wife. But everyone does it in this business. I fell out of love with my wife years ago but I can't afford to get a divorce because then I'll fall out of favor with the voters and lose my 'family man' label. My wife knows I sleep around. She even has a boy toy of her own on the side too. So what? We all do it."

Instead, we will most likely have to listen to a press conference where the guilty party will read his pre-packaged apology to his family, fans/voters and say he's sorry for his regrettable mistake or lapse in judgment.

People shouldn't get to throw these terms around so freely. Getting drunk and hooking up with the state's secretary of education's 19-year-old daughter in the office bathroom at the office Christmas party? That's a mistake and lapse in judgment. Carrying on an affair over a period of time? That's not a mistake, that's a major life decision. That's choosing to do the wrong thing over and over and just hoping not to get caught.

That's just being an idiot. Just ask their new king.