Don't hate the governor, hate the game! Maria Belen Shapur, the foxy 43-year-old Buenos Aires brunette who enchanted and brought down South Carolina Gov. Mark Sanford when he wasn't drivin' the coastline, lives in a posh enclave of BA's vast Palermo neighborhood, nicknamed (by me) Palermo MILF, right in front of the city's zoo and lovely Botanical Gardens. In the 70s and 80s, the neighborhood earned its nickname of Villa Freud for the unusually high concentration of shrinks in the area. In recent years, it's grown even more upscale and attracted a disproportionate share of so-called MILFs. Shapur, by all accounts, has all the trappings of a typical exponent of the neighborhood: she attended posh St. Catherine's Moorlands School in the preppy Belgrano neighborhood, then graduated from the stodgy Universidad Católica Argentina with a degree in (wait for it) International Relations! A marathon-running polyglot divorcee (and mother of two adolescents) who worked for multinational corporation Bunge & Born (or does she?), she speaks not only Mandarin, but several other languages, including fluent English (the better to email philandering American politicians). She would have been right at home in any number of Palermo MILF's elegant cafes. But there's one in particular, around the corner from her expensive apartment on Republica de la India St. where she and Gov. Sanford surely went for a romantic tea.

The dog ate my homework. I did not have sexual relations with that woman. I was driving along the coastline of Argentina. Who among us hasn't used one of these clever excuses when confronted by a displeased teacher, testy Congressional committee, or angry electorate? South Carolina Gov. Mark Sanford went AWOL last week and used that last bit about a jaunt along the South American coast to cover for his whereabouts. Allegedly, Sanford chose Buenos Aires as a more "exotic" destination than his first cover story of unreachably hiking the Appalachian Trail. Exotic like that drive along Argentina's exotic coastline. So exotic, in fact, that it was exotic even by Argentine standards. If you look at a map of Argentina, it might seem that there are endless coastal roads, with crashing waves and sandy beaches. But in actuality, the majority of roads run inland and eventually turn off at coastal towns. Maybe he was referring to the few miles of road along the Buenos Aires coastline known as La Costanera, which are dotted with carritos (street meat carts) and a few restaurants. In that case he could have used our handy Buenos Aires guide and dropped by Los Platitos for a steak while he was at it.