The winners and the losers

Winner: Anyone sending a postcard or letter to Mexico in the future may be sticking a stamp on it with a picture of Zion National Park. A new 79 cent stamp was unveiled this week, showing a lesser-known slickrock formation near the Checkerboard Mesa. This is the second time Zion has gotten such an honor in its 100 years as a park. Given how important the park is to tourism in this state, it's a bit of free advertising that, pardon the pun, can't be licked.

Loser: It probably won't come as a surprise to learn that Utah has among the weakest legislative financial disclosure laws in the nation. State lawmakers did pass laws earlier this year to remedy some of this. Unfortunately, those changes were too recent to affect the F grade the Center For Public Integrity gave the state this week in a nationwide report. Lawmakers here have long felt they should be trusted just by virtue of their election. That's beginning to change under new legislative leadership. Utah wasn't alone in the study. Nineteen other states got an F. Four of them even scored lower than Utah, which received only 9.5 points out of a possible 100.

Loser: South Carolina Gov. Mark Sanford couldn't have destroyed his political career any more effectively if he had robbed a bank. It's bad enough to cheat on your wife despite years of preaching the importance of family values. But he left the state without telling anyone where he was going or how he could be reached. A governor belongs to the people who elected him. If he deserts his post, he shouldn't be allowed to stay at the helm.