Mark, Mark, Mark.

You thought you had it all worked out, didn't you? Ditch your security detail, jump on a plane, head to Argentina. Hang out for a few days, bone your mistress, and come back. No one's the wiser, right?

But you forgot one thing, governor: You are a governor. Of a state.

And even though it is South Carolina, somebody was bound to notice. You're a man of power! You can't just be going around willy-nilly having sex with exotic women and thinking everything will be copacetic. You have to plan this shit out. Use a little subterfuge. If you're going to do evil, you have to think evil.

Here's what you should have done:

• In your various speeches to lawmakers and the public, begin slipping in references to your long-lost twin brother, Sark Manford, who has a thing for flying to South American countries to bang Argentine women.
• Build a robotic version of yourself who walks back and forth down the Appalachian Trail, and who constantly repeats, "I love my wife!"
• Invest in a stylish fake mustache.
• Put on said mustache, and begin speaking in a hard-to-identify ethnic accent, claiming to be Sark Manford.
• In a speech, announce that you're off on a trip to South America to bang some super-hot South American lady.
• Go bang the South American lady.
• Return, endure the scandal of Sark Manford, recover the robot and remove the mustache.
• Return home as Mark Sanford, who strongly criticizes the actions of Sark Manford and sentences him to 1 billion years in affair prison.
• Have Sark Manford break out as needed.

That would have worked.