**Gov. Mark Sanford
*"Gallup's latest Values and Beliefs update, conducted last month, shows that 92% of Americans say married men and women having an affair is morally wrong, garnering more opprobrium than another other moral issue tested in the poll." Cheating is 1 point higher than polygamy.

*The State's Smith writes about her "hunch" that led to her airport interview with Gov. Sanford.

*AP's Sidoti asks, "Why do politicians cheat?" One possible explanation, said Stanley Renshon, a political psychologist at City University of New York: "Narcissism is an occupational hazard for political leaders. You have to have an outsized ambition and an outsized ego to run for office."

*NY Times: The admission of an affair from two potential 2012 candidates in the span of a week "left party leaders dazed. They spent Wednesday alternating between gallows humor and yet another round of conversations about what the party stands for and who will give it its best shot to retake the White House."

*That's quite a list. "Extramarital affairs, gambling, alcohol abuse, prostitution and sexual pursuit of minors have taken a toll on the GOP," the Washington Times notes.

*Roll Call: "Any hopes that House and Senate Republican leaders had for going into the July Fourth recess next week on a high note were dealt a major setback Wednesday..."

*Politico: "One should be a bit cautious about invoking Sanford's embarrassment as political metaphor. Weaknesses of the flesh, like those of the bottle and purse, have been known to affect Democrats and even some people who are not in politics. But the sheer body count of recent months ... is unmistakable."

*WaPo's Dan Balz: "For a Republican Party down on its luck, the governor's disappearance and subsequent rambling apology to his wife, his family, his close friends and all the people of South Carolina draw more unwelcome publicity to a party that needs but cannot seem to get any good news."

*Milbank: "...however rotten Sanford's behavior was, there was something compelling in the raw and messy nature of his confession. Politicians' acknowledgments of infidelity have become set pieces of late ... But this was something entirely different. At a time when every last bit of political life is scripted, here was a powerful man wiping tears from his cheeks and talking about the intimate details of his shameful behavior."

**President Obama
*Politico's takeaway on last night's health care special, which it called "unparalleled opportunity for Obama to tout his program at length and largely unfiltered." The president "signaled a new willingness Wednesday to taxing health benefits, inching further away from his staunch opposition to the idea during the presidential campaign. "There is going to have to be some compromise."

*The DC Examiner's Julie Mason reports that Obama may be risking overexposure. "Mark Knoller, a CBS News radio correspondent and tabulator of presidential statistics, noted that since taking office, Obama has logged only seven days without a media appearance -- and all but one of those days was a Sunday."

*NY Times notes that despite today's immigration, "With lawmakers already immersed in health care, financial regulation and energy policy, and with the Senate set to hold hearings soon on Judge Sonia Sotomayor's nomination to the Supreme Court, administration officials and many in Congress say it is improbable that they will be able to add anything as challenging as an immigration overhaul."

*The Washington Post gets to the bottom of this month's shakeup in the East Wing: the first lady felt "she wasn't having the impact she wanted. She is a woman of substance, with a background in law, public policy and management, who found herself relegated to role model in chief." Since then, she's "been more vocal about the specifics of the president's health plan, and she will play a substantive role in promoting it. ... And she will be the face of the administration's United We Serve, a summer-long national service program, which she launched on Monday."

**Energy and Climate Change bill
*The Hill: "House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) held several meetings on Wednesday with Democrats and centrist Republicans to round up support for controversial legislation aimed at combating global warming. Pelosi's push comes as her lieutenants and the White House intensified their own efforts to convince skeptical lawmakers to back the bill before a scheduled floor vote on Friday that is expected to be very close."

*AP: "The nuclear industry, ethanol producers and rural electric cooperatives are among those who stand to benefit from eleventh-hour deals made by House Democrats in search of enough votes to pass a sweeping climate bill."

*After giving remarks at the outdoor green energy rally yesterday, Rep. Mike Doyle (D-Pa.) said "he thinks Peterson's approval is 'going to move some of the fence-sitters in the Agriculture Committee into the 'Yes' column.' Doyle said behind-the-scenes vote counting is still taking place, but 'there are so many leaning in the 'Yes' column, that there's a sense when it goes to the House floor' the bill will be approved."

*Ag Chairman Collin Peterson (D-Minn.), at a press conference yesterday afternoon: "So we had long discussions and a lot of work has been done, especially over the weekend, but we have now resolved all of the issues including the bio-mass issue, which was still hanging us up this afternoon. So I think we have resolved everything, and from my perspective, we have an offset program which is going to work ... So we think there are a lot of positive things in this for agriculture, and I think we're going to see the groups coming on board in support of this in the next day or two. I intend to support this bill and we thank the Speaker for her patience in dealing with us."

**Congress: "Unhappy about the huge bank bailouts that the Fed arranged with the Treasury Department during the Bush administration, many Republicans are even more displeased that Mr. Bernanke is now working hand-in-glove with the Obama administration. The result is a set of dueling narratives and agendas, all of which will be on full display when Mr. Bernanke testifies on Thursday," the NY Times reports.

**Campaign Stuff
*FL Sen: "Republican Party leaders who want to give Gov. Charlie Crist a clear path to the 2010 U.S. Senate nomination would love to see the other leading Senate candidate, former Florida House Speaker Marco Rubio, drop out and run for attorney general. No way, Rubio said this week," reports the Sun-Sentinel.

*NJ GOP governor hopeful Chris Christie testifies on Capitol Hill today. Star-Ledger: "The brief appearance could have lasting consequences for the Christie-Corzine contest, which is critical to national Democrats and Republicans as one of two governor's races this fall. ... Polls show Christie is 10 percentage points ahead of Corzine, whose painful state budget is up for approval in the Legislature today. But the wealthy Democratic incumbent can devote millions of dollars of his own money to taking down Christie, and national Democrats have already turned Christie's monitoring contracts into a negative advertising campaign."

*IL Gov: "Wheaton native Dan Proft stopped in Marion Wednesday to kick off his campaign. Proft--a small business owner-- has never held public office, but is very familiar with politics. He helped run Alan Keyes' 2004 campaign for U.S. Senate and is a frequent political commentator on Chicago media outlets."

**Sports Alert: Shaq is now a Cleveland Cavalier, after being traded (again) last night by the Phoenix Suns. He and LeBron James will now team up to bully the rest of the Eastern Conference and give Kobe Bryant fits in the 2010 NBA Finals. Question: How many more superstars will play with Shaq? Kobe, Dwayne Wade, LeBron...

--Kyle Trygstad and Mike Memoli