Emails May Have Triggered Confession

In its story today, The State of Columbia, S.C., indicates that although the paper had emails between Gov. Mark Sanford and his lover since December, they were unable to authenticate them. They sent a reporter to the woman's apartment in Buenos Aires yesterday, and she answered to the name in the emails, but refused to speak to their reporter once she'd identified herself as such.

When Sanford got off a plane from Buenos Aires, he stopped an interview with The State when asked if he had been with anyone in Argentina.

The State then contacted Sanford's office and a former aide, explicitly saying it had e-mails between the governor's personal e-mail address and an Argentine woman and thought them to be genuine.

Sanford's office subsequently scheduled a news conference, at which time the governor confessed to an affair.

Late Wednesday, the governor's office said it would not dispute the authenticity of the e-mails.

The State has published more emails, after the three excerpts they released yesterday. Sanford:

The rarest of all commodities in this world is love. It is that thing that we all yearn for at some level -- to be simply loved unconditionally for nothing more than who we are -- not what we can get, give or become. There are but 50 governors in my country and outside of the top spot, this is as high as you can go in the area I have invested the last 15 years of my life -- my getting here came as no small measure because I had that foundation of love and support so critical to getting up in the morning and feeling you could give and risk because you already had a full tank of love in the emotional bank account.