[Tapper:] Welcome back to "THE LEAD." Continuing in politics, you might say Congressman Mark Sanford changed his relationship status on Facebook on Friday. And while the former South Carolina governor did it in an epic heart on his sleeve post as opposed to a mere profile update, one thing is for sure, it's complicated. The Republican's followers and really the world at large got a detailed look at his side of the story and his messy divorce proceedings involving sadly their four sons. A process so painful Sanford writes that had led him to decide to call off his engagement to his Argentinean fiancee. CNN national correspondent, Suzanne Malveaux, has the latest from a man once considered possible presidential timber until that faithful walk down the proverbial Appalachian Trail. Suzanne, his fiancee says, is this right? That she first heard about the fact that their engagement was off by reading it on Facebook?
[Suzanne Malveaux, Cnn National Correspondent:] So you say it's complicated and it is in a way because here she says that she was surprised just as surprised as anybody else in the breakup because she said she learned about this on Facebook, her demise of the relationship. Ouch. But over the weekend, she told "The New York Times" that they had agreed to split up, but Sanford failed to give her a heads-up that he was announcing this on Facebook. So this is a relationship that ended as it basically began, amidst a media frenzy of their own making.
[Malveaux:] She was his soulmate, he said.
[Mark Sanford , South Carolina:] A whole lot more than a simple affair. It's a love story. A forbidden one, a tragic one, but a love story at the end of the day.
[Malveaux:] But the love story that took Mark Sanford from a would-be presidential candidate to a laughingstock ended as strangely as it began, on Facebook. In a posting that will go down in political history as a cringe-worthy overshare. South Carolina Congressman Mark Sanford uses 12,312 characters to announce the engagement to his one-time mistress, Maria Belen Chapur, is off. His Argentinean lover told "The New York Times," she was as surprised as everyone else by the Facebook confessional. The couple had actually just spent a week together in Paris when Sanford asked her to delay the wedding another two years. Belen says she wrote to Sanford saying, I had a spectacular week. You know I love you, but I don't want to continue in the category of mistress. I can't bear it anymore. The spectacularly public airing of his romantic dirty laundry echoed his first headline-making episode. Back in June of 2009 when the rising Republican star, then South Carolina Governor Sanford, went missing for six days
[Unidentified Male:] Governor alert, the search for Mark Sanford! Getting weirder. Yes, OK. It's Monday night. Do you know where your governor is?
[Malveaux:] Sanford's version, well?
[Jason Carroll, Cnn Correspondent:] At least part of the mystery has been solved in all of this. The governor is said to be, quote, "clearing his head" somewhere along the Appalachian Trail that stretches from Georgia to Maine.
[Malveaux:] It turned out the Appalachian Trail stretched a lot farther, sort of.
[Unidentified Male:] I got a call saying the governor was on his way back from Argentina.
[Malveaux:] Back on American soil, Sanford offered this tearful, lengthy mea culpa for his whopper of a lie.
[Sanford:] I have been unfaithful to my wife. I developed a relationship with a started as a dear, dear friend from Argentina.
[Malveaux:] But the emotional purge didn't stop there.
[Sanford:] There was an older couple sitting to our right and I remember them watching us in the way that we interacted. They could see a spark or I don't know what you call it.
[Malveaux:] TMI, already, Jenny Sanford filed for divorce and wrote a tell-all of her own. In her book "Staying True," she revealed, I shiver when I think that while I was cleaning up after a delicious family meal, he was e-mailing his soulmate with visions of her tan lines. In August 2012, he announced he and Beli were engaged. With her by his side, he bounced back. And it looked like voters forgave him. He won the open Republican congressional seat in a special election.
[Unidentified Male:] Mark Sanford's always been a loner in politics and he's never cared what other people think.
[Malveaux:] An irony of this story is now that she has put herself in Jenny's camp, sticking up for her saying that she is not to blame. She describes herself as just another casualty of Sanford saying that, I think I was not useful to him anymore. He made the engagement thing four months before the election so this is not about his son, this is about his career and his ambitions. It's rather ironic, don't you think, Jake?
[Tapper:] It's interesting. The whole saga is rather sad to watch. I have to say, you know, Fitzgerald said there is no second acts in American life, obviously, Mr. Sanford has proven that not to be true. Mr. Clinton beforehand. Can he stomach this? Can he weather this? Is this latest escapade going to hurt him in November or going forward?
[Malveaux:] You know, it's pretty amazing because when you talk to people who know him, they say, he's religious and believes in second and third chances, that the voters actually have supported him. But he's unopposed this November. He still has a term left so we'll see. I mean, right now, his seat is safe. He's actually safe. I don't know how much this actually plays out when people are like, we've had enough. This is it. We've had enough, but he is saying, look, I like Christ deserve a second chance and turn the other cheek. I'm going to come clean here. We'll see if the voters actually think that that's good enough.
[Tapper:] They have four magnificent boys, the Sanfords. It's so sad to see this play out in public. Suzanne Malveaux, thank you so much. Coming up, hundreds of service members who fought in Vietnam, Korea and the first and second world wars have been recognized with the honor. Why have so few, only four from Iraq and 12 from Afghanistan, have received the Medal of Honor?