John Ensign, Defender of Marriage--Except His Own - This good old boy is in big trouble

[NNN0LHI]

http://www.usnews.com/blogs/erbe/2009/06/17/john-ensign-defender-of-marriage--except-his-own.html

June 17, 2009 09:33 AM ET

By Bonnie Erbe, Thomas Jefferson Street blog

This is rich—another hypocritical politician. What a surprise! John Ensign's anti-gay marriage Senate career ended on Tuesday when he came out of the closet about his affair with a married campaign staffer. Apparently Sen. Ensign (R-Nev.) only went public when he discussed the affair with the staffer's husband—who also worked on his campaign—and the husband asked Sen. Ensign for a lot of money.

Sen. Ensign, while running against Sen. Harry Reid (D-Nev.) in 1998 called on President Clinton to resign for having his affair with White House intern Monica Lewinsky. One wonders whether Ensign is considering giving himself the same treatment. Of course not, at least now. But this nasty mess does seem to have knocked Sen. Ensign off the top of the list of GOP presidential nomination contenders in 2012.

This incident will also, let us hope, rob him of the credibility to campaign as a defender of marriage (against gay marriage.) ThinkProgress.org ran the following quotes from Ensign on the topic:

"I believe that marriage should be defined as that between one man and one woman. You want to do what is ideal for children and all of the studies show that the ideal for children is to be in a household with a father and a mother." {4/19/09}

NB: I know of no study that shows cheating in marriage is good for the children.

"Mr. President, I rise today to speak on a topic that is very important. That is the preservation of the most important structure in our society." {7/13/04}

[CJCRANE]

1. What a polite way of putting it:

"...the husband asked Sen. Ensign for a lot of money".

[FarPoint]

2. This may of been one of the Senators

Larry Flynt spoke of as having a hypocritical mind.

[VaYallaDawg]

3. Yet another example of how gay marriages threaten straight ones.

Or something like that. Same old GOP with their "family values" horseshit.

[sinkingfeeling]

4. So is Ensign's political career over? What's the difference between this guy and John Edwards?

[SammyWinstonJack]

5. Was wondering the same myself.

:shrug:

[medeak]

6. hypocrisy and much more

Firstly, he's the god candidate of Nevada... even the local republican strategists are embarrassed by his god thing. He had affair with his long time friend and senate staffer's wife...then terminates this husband... affair going back 7 years and lying it's only been a year. oh and so much more... and here's some humor... I love wonkette and the comments:

http://wonkette.com/409236/disgraced-whore-of-babylon-john-ensigns-sexy-bbq-postponed

[Mari333]

9. the comments are priceless LOL

[Tesha]

7. The difference is that Ensign is a Republican.

So he'll get much different treatment by the Media and the
rest of the Chattering Classes.

Tesha

[SpiralHawk]

8. "At least I wasn't having diaper sex with hookers, like other repubs." - Ensign (R)

"So I gots better family values than my fellow Republicon Homelanders. Smirk."

- Ensign

[boomerbust]

14. He's just an average Puke

Not like he was trolling public airport bathrooms.

[gratuitous]

10. "Big trouble" - how do you figure?

I mean, it's not like there's a shame factor to being a Republican. Democrats can be shamed into doing practically anything, even when the basis of the shaming is so hypocritically bogus that you figure the folks causing the ruckus should just explode from their own internal contradictions. But Republicans can't possibly be shamed. The more reprehensible their behavior, the more indignant they become that anyone would even notice. Ensign might lay low for a few weeks, but he'll be back more brazen than ever by Labor Day.

[NNN0LHI]

11. Wait for the whole story to come out and you will see

Anytime a Rethug comes out and admits doing anything wrong we should assume its a lot worse that what they admit to.

Don

[gratuitous]

12. True enough

When they admit to lying, they're probably cheating. When they admit to cheating, they're probably stealing. When they admit to stealing, they're probably killing. But will it come out? Now that Ensign has made a clean breast of the situation (so to speak), will the popular media start poking around in the closet to see what else might come clattering out, or will they be happy with this? History indicates that this will be sufficient, and Ensign will come out of this with his Senate seat intact. A seemly period of penance, and he'll be back in the full good graces of the GOP.

I'm a bit surprised that Ensign hasn't taken the opportunity to bash the Obama administration: After all, if the economy was doing better, he probably could have afforded to pay the blackmail money to his paramour's husband. It's Obama's fault! Poor Sen. Ensign, another victim of hard economic times. Why, he's every bit as oppressed as an Iranian dissident! Maybe more.

[NNN0LHI]

13. The mistress and her husband are the wild cards in this one

We need to hear their side of this story real bad.

Don

[malaise]

15. Time for Cindy and Douglas Hampton to speak

:evilgrin: