Gov. Mark Sanford Spent the Weekend In the Keys With His Argentine Lover

So you've had a torrid love affair that imploded your political career, destroyed your family and cemented your spot in the Hall of Fame for GOP "family values" hypocrites.

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If you're South Carolina Gov. Mark Sanford, apparently, you spend a steamy weekend in the Florida Keys with your lover in an attempt to "restart" the relationship.

Sanford admitted this afternoon that he spent last weekend in the Keys with his lover, former Argentine TV broadcaster Maria Belen Chapur.

Sanford briefly sent South Carolina into a panic last summer when he apparently disappeared while hiking the Appalachian Trial. Turns out, he made up the hiking trip as a cover story to visit Chapur in Buenos Aires.

Sanford eventually admitted to a year-long affair, earning censure from his state's legislature and a divorce from his wife. Now, he's apparently trying to re-ignite the flame with Chapur.

"As a matter of record, everybody in this room knows exactly who I was with over the weekend," Sanford tells the Associated Press. "That is no mystery to anybody given what I said last summer."

Gawker first reported on Sunday a reader's tip that Sanford and Chapur were vacationing together at the toney Cheeca Lodge in Islamorada.

Reporters asked the governor about the trip at a news conference this afternoon. He bristled at the questions but admitted why he'd traveled to the Keys (though he denied staying at the Cheeca Lodge).

"You know, the purpose was obviously to see if something could be restarted on that front given the rather enormous geographic gulf between us. And time will tell. I don't know if it will or won't," he said.

"But this obsession with one's personal life at some point has got to end," he added.