South Carolina Gov. Mark Sanford’s affair with an Argentine woman continues to make waves in U.S. political circles.

But it’s not the sex that matters.

Sanford’s major mistake was to abandon his post as governor. He vaporized, lied to his staff, which then misled the public unintentionally as to his whereabouts, only to be revealed as being in Argentina.

The Republican governor’s sexual misdeed is bad enough. He has proclaimed himself to be a born-again Christian. He excoriated a one-time president, Bill Clinton, for his own transgressions and then lying about it. Sanford has held himself up as a paragon of virtue; he now stands before us as a major-league hypocrite.

But the real problem with Sanford now is that he has to explain how he can continue to govern when he has demonstrated an ability to walk away from his job — and then reportedly spend public money to help pay for his romantic misadventure.

If it were me, I couldn’t look at myself in the mirror, let alone ask my constituents to keep paying my salary.