What if he demands that Senator Ensign pass special legislation legalizing same-sex marriage and late-term abortions?

Just throwin’ that one out there.

n/t

Once the guy started lusting for money he lost that innocent victim status. He fell just as Ensign did.

I can’t put one over the other once he went from the guy whose wife betrayed him, to the guy trying to blackmail a Senator.

t

Enjoy this site, enjoy reading your opinion Erick, but think this post is not your finest hour. What is the purpose of the post? Ensign is disgraceful for his actions, but that doesn’t mean he should roll over when someone is blackmailing him, or that the other guy has carte blanche to ask for whatever he wishes. Ensign can still condemn another persons action, but he condemnation should be viewed by others through the perspective of what Ensign did and what credibility he has.

Someone had to say it. Well done, EE

Why is she getting a pass in all this? She helped create this mess. She was a married woman who slept with the man her whole family worked for. Hardly a beacon of virtue.

From what I have read, Ensign was separated from his wife at the time when the affair began. So, we have a woman that did this of her own will…. was this a plan? I don’t trust anybody or anything right now. Then we have a husband trying to take down Ensign and mentions Coburn in his letter. He also tries to drag Fox News into it. I smell something funny here and the sick smell of Dingy Harry. Sorry, Erick, I like you and am registered for Atlanta, but I disagree with you on this one. If I were Ensign I would tell everyone to mind their own ……. business. You keep doing this and we are whimps.

Political sex scandals piss me off. Especially when they involve people in power sleeping with* people that have power over.

I believe in giving people in power a large benefit of the doubt, but then nailing them to the wall if they mess up.

*or whatever is included in not having relations with *that* woman. Bastard. She was in intern. And that Foley perv…gah…

Everyone should have kept their mouths shut about it. But, it serves no real purpose to judge adult behavior as long as its private behavior. When the public purse gets involved, its a different matter.

over something nobody even notices when a Democrat does it. I don’t know about you, but I’ve been around a fair share of politically ambitious women; a fair share of them will trip you and try to beat you to the ground. And with a fair share of politically ambitious husbands, the wife’s “virtue” is just trade goods.

Maybe if we had 60 Senators, we could indulge in publicly horsewhipping one of our own who’d screwed up. But we don’t have 60 Senators, do we? We have 40.

What’s the goal here? Horsewhip Ensign to the point where he crawls into a hole? David Axelrod says thanks.

What was the point in this, Erick? Just because you COULD say something didn’t mean you HAD to.

What do you want to happen? Have Ensign resign? Can the Rs hold the seat if he does so? Are you 100% sure?

You’ve basically said that John Ensign is a crappy person. OK—crappy persons shouldn’t be Senators.

What next?

No crime committed against the public trust, just against his wife’s trust (maybe since they were separated). I agree with Doc and Neil on this one, Erick.

Besides, it’s Nevada. Let his constituents decide whether by doing this he really is representing the people there (where prostitution is legal and what happens there, stays there (except if you’re a US Senator).

The way this should have gone down was that 1) Ensign makes a public admission with due remorse, 2) resigns his leadership post, 3) keeps quiet while the media play the story for a few days and makes no more public statements to feed the fire, 4) things quiet down as the fire burns itself out for lack of fuel, and 5) Ensign serves out his term. No need to kick him to the curb: rather his colleagues and party officials stand behind him against demands for resignation and don’t feed the fire ourselves with intemperate comments. Let the voters decide in the next primary/general election.

What turned this affair into theater was when some anonymous aide of Ensign leaked to the press that Ensign was confessing at this time because the husband was trying to extort hush money. Of course this turned things into a media circus, with the husband making his public statement denying the extortion charge and putting his spin on the matter, followed by Ensign himself repeating the charge on the record. Now we have a story with legs, as the press gets into looking for evidence, and we await others jumping into the fray.

The point is that the spotlight has now shifted froma case of adultery (which is not a crime) to an allegation of a serious crime and behind it the question “is Ensign telling the truth about this extortion charge”.

So again, I do not understand why Ensign dragged in this extortion charge against the husband. Either (as I stated earlier) Ensign should have gone quietly to the DA when the extortion attempt began and set up a wire/tape of the transaction, or Ensign needs now to go to the DA with evidence (and hopefully he has some evidence besides one-on-one conversations with the husband).

Otherwise it looks like Ensign was trying to throw dirt elsewhere to distract form his misconduct – and that is neither appropriate behavior nor good damage control.

So once again, as with other such cases that blow up, the sexual misconduct itself is a relatively minor and managable problem compared with the consequences of the behavior afterwards (in this case the leveling of extortion charges against the husband) that makes this a much bigger production than it needed to and rises letting things spiral out of control.

I don’t see any reason at this time for Ensign to resign nor for Republicans to push him out of office – the voters can determine this. Nonetheless Ensign has been damaged more than necessary.

If this extortion charge turns out to be bogus, then its a different ball game. But unless that happens, we do need to cover his back.

I’m not pleased with the way Ensign has handled this matter to date.

Go away, take a vacation or something until this whole thing blows over.

He has 5 1/2 years until re-election. The less he talks about it, the better.

It’s too bad; I actually thought he had a shot at national office someday.

Go away, take a vacation or something until this whole thing blows over.

He has 5 1/2 years until re-election. The less he talks about it, the better.

It’s too bad; I actually thought he had a shot at national office someday.

response he did from those of you disagreeing with his post. Wise men don’t deal lightly in moral judgement. There’s a lot we don’t know about in this story. We don’t need to know. These people need to go away.

Ensign should shut up and take it like a man.

It seems even Red State will censor what they do not like, anything based on religious conviction or morality.

What we need to remember here is that we are all human. I am not going to defend Sen. Ensign, however, we do need to consider some facts here. 1) It takes two to tango, both a married man and a married woman were involved here, and it was also consensual. Both are to blame. 2) Sen. Ensign and his wife were separated at the time. The woman and her husband apparently were not. 3) Since all of this, at least something good has come of it: The Ensigns are back together and Mrs. Ensign says the marriage is stronger than ever now. That says a lot, and I am not defending Sen. Ensign on this, it is just we always look for the bad, the negative, the way to hate and criticize others, instead of the Gospel principle of REPENTANCE, which all of us are in need of.

Would I vote for Sen. Ensign? I honestly do not know. It would depend if another strong conservative ran against him or not. He is a Senator people, he is not the Messiah. This is one of the big problems we have in America today. We look to our political leaders and government for the answers to everything, to be our SAVIOR. They are not! They are just like us, human, with frailties. Sen. Ensign has repented and made it right with his wife. That is what the Savior has asked of each of us. Let’s get bush working on it.

As I remember, there is a scripture which says: “Let him who is without sin cast the first stone.” It looks like we have a lot of perfect people here.

and a failure as a husband, Father and overall Human Being…

Bum
Scum Bag
loser
creep
cretin
slime ball

just plain trash!

The “Big Tent” analogy isn’t the correct one…the correct one is a MAGNET…we need to be a MAGNET that draws these independents in who are sick and tired of what’s going on in Washington—Fred Thompson