The past few days have given new meaning to the phrase "hiking the Appalachian Trail." It used to mean, well, hiking the Appalachian Trail. Now it means sneaking off to Argentina for a love tryst involving soft lips, curvy hips, tan lines and a good, long cry.

Such was the outcome of South Carolina Gov. Mark Sanford's mysterious disappearance last week.

Mr. Sanford, of course, is the conservative Christian Republican who says he believes in moral absolutes in private and public behavior. Saying marriage should be between one man and one woman, he opposes civil unions, same-sex marriage and adoption. He opposes sex education that includes discussion of contraceptives and the prevention of sexually transmitted diseases along with abstinence. He refused to accept $700 million in federal stimulus money that South Carolina badly needed until a court ordered him to take it. Many in the GOP considered him a hot prospect for the presidency. They didn't know how hot.

The governor told his staff he was thinking of hiking the trail as he had in the past, but in fact, he flew to Buenos Aires to meet with a woman he'd begun an affair with a year ago. Nobody knew he was out of the country -- including the lieutenant governor, who should have been in charge during his absence, and the governor's wife, who, it turned out, had asked him to leave a few weeks earlier.

Suspicion about his whereabouts reached a fever pitch -- as a friend of mine noted, the only question was whether he was off with a man or a woman -- until Mr. Sanford returned home and called a press conference. Choking back tears, he said his relationship with this woman had begun innocently and had suddenly "sparked" into something more; his wife had known about it for five months; they were trying to work it out with spiritual counseling; he'd spent the last five days "crying in Argentina."

He apologized to everyone. He noted that God's law exists to "save us from ourselves" and he was now facing the consequences of breaking that law. He resigned as chairman of the Republican Governors Association.

Shortly thereafter, The State newspaper released some steamy e-mails they'd been holding since December, until they could confirm their authenticity. In them, Mr. Sanford sounds positively gob-smacked, expressing deep, poetic longing for the woman's beauty and sexuality (hence the lips, hips, etc.) He comes across as a star-crossed lover who knows he'll never have his heart's desire. Which may be harder for his wife to forgive than a casual fling might have been.

In the wake of Eliot Spitzer, John Edwards, John Ensign, David Vitter and David Paterson -- and those are just in the past year -- it's a cliche to wonder about yet another politician's reckless disregard for family and career. Did he think he could disappear for five days and no one would notice? Or was he, perhaps, begging to be caught?

Hard to say, but I can't help wondering if his naked swan dive might, at long last, drive home an overdue lesson for the American political system: Our political leaders need to quit shoving their religious piety and self-righteous "family values" in our faces -- and voters need to stop demanding that they do so -- so we can all get back to matters of public governance for the common good.

Excuse me for hammering once again on a recurring theme, but we've seen time and again that private behavior is not necessarily reflective of public stewardship. Faithful husbands like Richard Nixon and George W. Bush (as far as we know) can make disastrous political leaders, while philanderers like Franklin Roosevelt and Bill Clinton can make highly successful ones (John Kennedy might have, too, if he'd lived long enough).

This not being Italy, Mr. Sanford's affair would have been a bad career move in any case. But people would find it easier to forgive, or at least to acknowledge it as human frailty, if he didn't look like such a sanctimonious hypocrite. There's nothing wrong with holding oneself to a high standard and falling short. But preaching moral absolutes for others while breaking them yourself is asking for ridicule.

If he'd run on his beliefs about small government and fiscal conservatism and confined the Bible-based moralizing to home and church, the reaction today might be more sadness than smug -- if not downright sick -- delight. He'd still have problems with the family and constituents he let down, but the public might be more willing to balance the job he's done as governor against his private shortcomings.

Remember that Americans forgave Mr. Clinton twice, electing him after he admitted causing pain in his marriage and opposing his Monica-gate impeachment. Not many modern-day pols could have survived that, but Mr. Clinton never claimed to be a model of decorum, so his sins were seen by many as more personal than public. A lot of people figured that if his wife forgave him, they could, too.

Politicians have weaknesses like anyone else, maybe moreso. The temptations of their jobs -- the constant fund-raising and the many hours surrounded by sycophants who pump up their egos and sense of invulnerability -- put them at especially high risk of falling.

If fall they must, the distance down is a lot shorter from the state house than it is from the right hand of God. More of them would do well to think about that the next time they're planning a campaign -- or hiking the Appalachian Trail.