OMG I'm never going to shut up about the Fed's Bank of America drama.

Because I'd be a bad conservative if I didn't at least devote some time to South Carolina Governor Mark Sanford (sorry I'm late, it's been a busy week), I thought it might be a good idea to compare his "racy" e-mails to the Fed's racy Bank of America e-mails. Bear with me. Just want to make sure we're watching the right scandal.

CNNMoney:

Federal Reserve staff discussed getting a "pound of flesh" from Bank of America Corp. (BAC) management in return for government aid to help close its deal for Merrill Lynch & Co., internal documents show, highlighting the tense deliberations over the $20 billion rescue eventually provided to the bank.

The documents, unearthed by congressional investigators, show that Fed officials faced skepticism from both inside and outside the central bank. FDIC Chairman Sheila Bair, writing to Fed Chairman Ben Bernanke just two days before the government aid was unveiled, said there was "strong discomfort with this deal at the FDIC."

"My board does not want to do this," Bair wrote in the Jan. 14 email discussing what role the FDIC would play in backstopping possible losses at Bank of America.

It's so good that we have to do this twice (NYT):

The documents show that many Fed officials refused to believe that Kenneth D. Lewis, Bank of America’s chief executive, had not learned about Merrill’s losses until mid-December. Many top officials wanted to shake up the bank’s top management, or at least rein in its activities, in exchange for government rescue money. One official asked how the central bank could best extract a “pound of flesh” from the bank.

So where's the e-mail where Sanford tells Maria he would like to extract a "pound of flesh" from her backside? Now that's a story. Otherwise, you have a middle-aged Governor who accidentally fell for some Argentinian chick and sort of forgot about the rest of his life for a moment.

Oh please, America, like you never said you were going "hiking on the Appalachian Trail."

The argument is that Sanford abandoned his post so we'll go with that one. One more GOP hopeful down, who's left? The clock is ticking for the Republicans and it appears the viable candidates are being picked off one by one.

Sanford just happened to get picked off going after a pound of Argentinian flesh that he was obviously hopelessly in love with.

Meanwhile, what was Bernaulson's excuse?