What a wonderful summer it has been, for fans of the dragged-out meltdowns of prominent Republican politicians! We should perhaps pause to recognize the contributions John Ensign, Mark Sanford, and Sarah Palin have made to our American language.

The South Carolina Republican leadership has decided to "censure" folksy sex troll Mark Sanford, essentially letting him get away with his South American fornication forays. They then proclaimed this "sad chapter" closed and called for "a time for healing."

A reader passed along a quote from Mark Sanford she ran across in an April edition of Time: "I think the fatal flaw of a lot of people in politics is that they want to be loved." Ha! [Time]

There are book deals happening today! Bloggers will publish, governors will not, and a peculiar, and speculative, sci-fi series lands a publisher.

• The New York Blade, one of the two big gay and lesbian newspapers in New York City, has suspended publication and laid off most of its staff. [NYT]
• How many books can you possibly read about Bernie Madoff? Who knows, but there at least four books about him scheduled to hit stores this fall. [Crains]
• David Rohde, the New York Times reporter who was kidnapped in Afghanistan with his translator in November and released a couple of weeks ago, returned to the Times newsroom to a standing ovation yesterday. [NYT]
• James Frey's young adult novel has been sold to HarperCollins. [NYT]
• Wonkette editor Ken Layne has sold a book to HarperCollins, too. [NYO]
• The battle between CNBC's Dennis Kneale and bloggers goes on. [Dealbreaker]

CNN: Bennett: Sanford needs to stop 'embarrassing himself.'" And if there's anyone who should know about embarrassing yourself, it's Bill Bennett! So it's just a little weird that CNN doesn't mention Bill's own experiences with public embarrassment.

You just knew that the Mark Sanford scandal would inspire many hilarious parody and mash-up videos. Our own Mike Byhoff made one today! Now comes this very hilarious one titled, appropriately, "Hiking the Appalachian Trail: Because Sometimes Love Leaves Town."

As governor Mark Sanford's rhapsodizing about his affair mostly sounded like the back of a dull-ish romance novel, we thought it could use some spicing up. So, video guy Mike Byhoff synced it to steamy telenovela Sin Senos. Enjoy!

Well, CBS news, when a husband and wife and a mistress and an unknown number of unidentified other women love each other very much...

Yesterday now-legendary conservative horndog Mark Sanford admitted that he'd "crossed the lines" with a "handful" of women not named Jenny Sanford during his marriage to Jenny Sanford, but claims he never "crossed the ultimate line." So what did he do?

It turns out Mark Sanford left some things out of his big long weepy affair confession, including three New York encounters with his mistress. It turns out he felt the need to break up with her twice! Imagine that.

We can all agree that Jenny Sanford is awesome, right? She is relentlessly honest in her public statements and interviews. And now everyone on Earth wants her to ruin her life by running for office?

Hah. So Mika Brzezinski complained about the old sex scandal double standard, and then when she had Rudy Giuliani in the studio to talk about Mark Sanford, she forgot to ask him about his own business.

Mark Sanford was totally going to be the next president, until he fell in love with Maria. Now, not so much. But Republican strategists have so many other Great White Hopes! What disasters will greet them?

Maureen Dowd fired up her patented pop-culture-meets-political-sideshow engine again yesterday to explore the resonances between The Holiday, the 2006 Cameron Diaz movie that Dowd thinks Mark Sanford recommended via e-mail to his Argentinian paramour, and Sanford's life. Wrong Holiday, MoDo.

• A second autopsy was performed on Michael Jackson over the weekend just as details from the first were revealed: Jackson was just 112 pounds when he died and his "emaciated body was riddled with needle marks and scars, and his head was virtually bald." In the meantime, his doctor, Conrad Murray, has denied giving Jackson any drugs right before his death and says he found a faint pulse when he first discovered him. Jackson's parents say they plan to fight for custody of Jackson's kids and for control of his estate. And plenty of people came out to celebrate Jackson's life at a couple of BET parties this weekend. And now you're all caught up. [NYP, LAT, WP, NYDN]
• Poor Jen Aniston. One minute she's happy and relaxed and supposedly dating Bradley Cooper and now Cooper says they're just "friends." [P6, NYDN]

Maria Belen Chapur released a statement tonight to clear up some misconceptions about her, but didn't deny that she's been boning Mark Sanford, which is, according to Rush Limbaugh, all Barack Obama's fault (No, seriously, he really said that!).

Have you murdered or slept with someone you shouldn't have? Are you being forced to release some documents you totally don't want to? Do it right now. You'll never have a better opportunity.

In your overwhelmed Friday media column: Iran just arrests everyone, for reporting, Conde Nast's September prayers will not be answered, a new chairman at the FCC, and the Mark Sanford source remains at large.

Guanabee, because they speak Spanish, connects all the dots: This woman, named María Belén Chapur, is being identified by Argentinian television as Mark Sanford's paramour. It's not that other lady from Facebook.