The following column isn’t perfect, but… close enough!

—– Genius In The Bottle (Maureen Dowd/The New York Times; June 27)

As in all great affairs, Mark Sanford fell in love simultaneously with a woman and himself — with the dashing new version of himself he saw in her molten eyes.

In a weepy, gothic unraveling, the South Carolina governor gave a press conference illustrating how smitten he was, not only with his Argentine amante, but with his own tenderness, his own pathos and his own feminine side.

He got into trouble as a man and tried to get out as a woman.

He wanted to get his girlfriend a DVD of the movie “The Holiday,” presumably the Cameron Diaz-Kate Winslet chick flick about two women, one from L.A. and one from England, who trade homes and lives. He was fantasizing about catapulting himself into an exotic life where stimulus had nothing to do with budgets.

With Maria, he was no longer the penny-pinching millionaire Mark, who used to sleep on a futon in his Congressional office and once treated two congressmen to movie refreshments by bringing back a Coke and three straws.

No, he was someone altogether more fascinating: Marco, international man of mystery and suave god of sex and tango.

Mark was the self-righteous, Bible-thumping prig who pressed for Bill Clinton’s impeachment; Marco was the un-self-conscious Lothario, canoodling with Maria in Buenos Aires, throwing caution to the e-wind about their “soul-mate feel,” her tan lines, her curves, “the erotic beauty of you holding yourself (or two magnificent parts of yourself) in the faded glow of night’s light.”

Mark is a conservative railing against sinners; Marco sins liberally. Mark opposes gay marriage as a threat to traditional marriage. Marco thinks nothing of risking his own traditional marriage, and celebrates transgressive relationships. He frets to Maria in e-mail that he sounds “like the Thornbirds — wherein I was always upset with Richard Chamberlain for not dropping his ambitions and running into Maggie’s arms.”

Marco, the libertine, wonders how they will ever “put the Genie back in the bottle.” And in the sort of Freudian slip that any solipsistic pol like Mark would adore, Maria protests in Spanglish: “I don’t want to put the genius back in the bottle.”

Mark is so frugal for the taxpayers that he made his staffers use both sides of Post-it notes and index cards, and once brought two (defecating) pigs named “Pork” and “Barrel” into the statehouse to express his disgust with lawmakers’ pet spending projects.

Marco is a sly scamp who found a sneaky way to make South Carolina taxpayers pay for a south-of-the-border romp with his mistress.

Mark is so selfish he tried to enhance his presidential chances by resisting South Carolina’s share of President Obama’s $787 billion stimulus package, callously giving the back of his hand to the suffering state’s most vulnerable — the jobless and poor and black students.

Marco is generous, promising to send a memento of affection that Maria wants to keep by her bed.

Mark hates lying. As he said of Bill’s dalliance with Monica, “If you undermine trust in our system, you undermine everything.”

Marco lies with brio, misleading his family, his lieutenant governor, his staff and his state about his whereabouts, even packing camping equipment to throw off the scent from South America. He told whoppers to his wife, a former investment banker who managed his campaigns and raises his four sons (solo on Father’s Day). She put out a statement quoting Psalm 127 to snidely remind her besotted husband “that sons are a gift from the Lord.”

Jenny Sanford told The Associated Press on Friday that Mark had told her he needed time to be alone and write, so she was stunned to learn he was in Argentina on a “Roman Holiday.” Before he left to “write,” she warned him not to skip off to the other woman.

Mark, who disdains rascals, agreed that he wouldn’t. Marco, who is a rascal, skipped off.

Mark went back to work on Friday, giving his cabinet a lecture on personal responsibility and comparing himself to King David, who “fell mightily … in very, very significant ways but then picked up the pieces and built from there.”

Actually, the one thing David didn’t do after his adulterous fall was build, because he was forbidden by God to construct his dream temple in Jerusalem.

Sanford should give his piety a rest. He told his cabinet that the Psalms taught him humility. (There’s a chance that a younger Argentine boyfriend of Maria’s also taught him humility, by jealously hacking into her e-mail account and leaking the governor’s missives.)

Sanford can be truly humble only if he stops dictating to others, who also have desires and weaknesses, how to behave in their private lives.

The Republican Party will never revive itself until its sanctimonious pantheon — Sanford, Gingrich, Limbaugh, Palin, Ensign, Vitter and hypocrites yet to be exposed — stop being two-faced.

You remember Ensign and Vitter – right?

No matter. Here’s a brief review for future generations that stumble upon this entry:

—– New Allegations In Sen. John Ensign Sex Scandal (The Los Angeles Times; July 9)

LAS VEGAS: The sex scandal engulfing Sen. John Ensign deepened Wednesday after his former mistress’ husband made new allegations about the relationship, saying the Nevada Republican paid the woman more than $25,000 in severance when she stopped working for him last year.

Doug Hampton made the accusation in a TV interview with Las Vegas Sun columnist Jon Ralston. He also provided the newspaper with an emotional letter purportedly from Ensign to Hampton’s wife, Cynthia, calling the months-long relationship a “sin.”

“I used you for my own pleasure,” the letter reads, later adding, “Plain and simple it was wrong; it was sin.”

The letter, which the Sun put on its website, and Doug Hampton’s interview with Ralston marked another embarrassment for Ensign, 51, a Christian conservative who abruptly came forward last month and confessed to the affair.

A severance payment could pose campaign finance or ethics issues for the senator….

Cynthia Hampton had been treasurer of the senator’s campaign committees. Doug Hampton worked for Ensign as a Senate aide. He said his wife received the payment as severance when she left her position in May 2008. Both men said the affair continued until August.

The two families were longtime friends.

Ensign’s office has acknowledged helping Doug Hampton get work once he left the Senate office. Through a spokesman, Ensign has accused him of recently making “exorbitant demands for cash and other financial benefits.”…

—– David Vitter (Wikipedia)

David Bruce Vitter (born May 3, 1961) is the junior United States Senator from Louisiana and a member of the Republican Party. Formerly a member of the United States House of Representatives, first elected in 1999, representing the suburban Louisiana’s 1st congressional district, Vitter was elected to the Senate in 2004….

Vitter is a staunch political conservative [and a Roman Catholic]. His legislative agenda includes positions ranging from pro-life to pro-gun rights while legislating against gambling, same-sex marriage, funding for abortion providers, increases in the State Children’s Health Insurance Program, the United Nations, and amnesty for America’s undocumented workers….

In July 2007, Vitter was identified as a client of “D.C. Madam” Deborah Jeane Palfrey’s prostitution service in Washington, D.C.

But wait – there’s MORE!

—– Former Ohio Faith-Based Official Pleads Guilty To Pimping Charge (Bruce Cadwallader/The Columbus Dispatch; July 9)

A former director of Gov. Ted Strickland’s Faith-Based and Community Initiative pleaded guilty this morning to two felony counts after police said he tried to pimp a 17-year-old prostitute.

Robert E. McFadden, 46, of 6290 Hyland Dr., Dublin, pleaded guilty to two counts of compelling prostitution for computer activity he conducted between September and October last year. Five other counts of pandering obscenity and promoting prostitution were dismissed.

The pleas in Franklin County Common Pleas Court could land McFadden in prison for as long as 10 years. Judge Tim Horton set sentencing for Aug. 20.

Prosecutors said McFadden, who is free on bond, took photographs of the girl he met on an Internet chat room and then offered her services to other men on the site as a “recommended” prostitute.

Columbus vice detectives monitoring online discussions among clients of prostitutes for years said McFadden posted under the names “Sullivant Guy,” “Broad Street Guy,” “Toby” and “God O Thunder.”

Like many others on the sites, McFadden traded information about street hookers and online escorts. He would recommend some prostitutes, issue warnings about others and give advice on ways to avoid law enforcement.

Columbus police learned of the activity during an online sex sting in January.

Defense attorney Keith Golden explained to Horton that McFadden is not charged with having sex with the girl, but promoting her sex services.

McFadden, a former field director for a Catholic organization, was hired Strickland in 2007 to lead the Faith-Based office at $36 an hour and encouraged to make it easier for such organizations to compete for public funding.

He was later transferred to the Ohio Department of Rehabilitation and Correction, but was laid off due to budget cuts.

—– Pastor Pays Dearly After Dancer Tattles (Paul Walsh/The Minneapolis Star Tribune/The Columbus Dispatch; July 9)

MINNEAPOLIS: Three years into a relationship that started with him watching her dance and progressed to money for sex, the Rev. Mark Ostgarden had a proposal for exotic dancer Bunny Byington.

How about the Lutheran pastor quit paying her and they consider their relationship an affair instead?

Byington’s reply? How about he pay her $7,000 or she would blab about their escapades to his wife and church?

Now, Ostgarden’s 19 years as a Lutheran clergyman in Valley City, N.D., have come to a quick end after he felt forced to tell police in Moorhead, Minn., about 46-year-old Byington’s alleged attempt to extort money from him to keep quiet about their relationship.

He paid her the money in two installments this spring, slipping the cash under the door of Byington’s Moorhead apartment. On June 5, Byington said she wanted still more money. When the pastor said he couldn’t meet her demand, Byington made good on her threat and exposed the relationship to his wife and church.

She also sent the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America bishop a photo of the pastor on a bed wearing only his underpants and a T-shirt, according to charges filed against Byington last week in Clay County District Court.

Ostgarden, 52, resigned as associate pastor from Our Savior’s Lutheran Church in Valley City on June 5, the same day he called police about Byington.

“I know I’ve hurt a lot of friends and family,” Ostgarden said in a phone interview Tuesday.

Despite the sex scandal, he said, he hopes to someday again be a faith leader for a church. “If I am able to get the right counseling and help, that’s something I’d like to do,” Ostgarden said.

The Rev. Randall Schlecht, senior pastor for Our Savior’s, said feelings among congregants at the 127-year-old church have “run from sadness to embarrassment to being stunned — all of those.”

According to the charges, Ostgarden first contacted Byington about three years ago by answering an ad for an exotic dancer. He began seeing her at her home in Fargo, N.D., for dance shows. Eventually, the pastor started paying Byington for sex.

In March, the pastor said he wanted to stop paying her and hoped they could consider their relationship an affair.

On May 14, she told the pastor that he had to give her $6,000 for her to stay silent, according to the charges. About two weeks later, she demanded another $3,000, but he persuaded her to accept $1,000.

Six days later, the pastor went to police to report the extortion.