Senator John Ensign (R-NV) admitted to having had an extra marital affair last year with a married woman who, together with her husband, were "close friends." This is a man who spoke out against marriage equality for homosexuals because he felt that marriage was sacred. So are there any gay bashing Republicans out there who aren't leading secret sex lives on the side?
According to CNN, he is up for reelection in 2012 and has been hanging out in Iowa a little more than would be normal unless he had presidential pretensions.
Ensign is an extremely conservative senator. He's strongly against civil liberties of all types having voted for constitutional bans on flag burning and marriage equality and for increased flexibility for warrantless wire tapping. He's voted against extending hate crime legislation to include homosexuals. And the NAACP rates him as being 93% anti-affirmative action.
Here's to hoping Ensign gets demoted.
15 comments:
We posted simultaneously sorry.
And this shocks anyone? M
Oh dear, another Republican turns out to be a hypocrite...especially with "family values". I will be looking forward to high the bigoted extremists that now rule the Republican party have to say about this!!!
I find it amusing how members of Congress can have affairs with their employees and nothing happens, except a tearful apology to family and friends. But if a member of the military commits this offense, they lose their careers, convicted of laws created by the vary individuals indulging in the same activities. Even more amusing, Congress members be involved in having sex with a hooker and again, more news conferences, more tears and more apologies. Same offense by a military members, they are charges with human trafficking and eliminate from their military service. When are we (Americans) going to get tired of the double standards our Congress routinely sets? When are we going to hold them to a moral standard? and stop the do as I say, not as I do policy? Are we going to continue to allow our members of Government to destroy our moral fabric and reduce our country to the laughing stock of the world? It's time for change. We need to get the old blood out of power and get America back on track.
He wasn't caught. He outed himself. Hmmm. Looks like he's planning a run for president, otherwise it makes no sense.
I have less of a problem with a politician who has an affair if he/she doesn't base his/her policy positions on self-righteous "Christian" BS.
If Ted Kennedy chases women, I'm OK with it really (short of the whole fleeing the scene of the car wreck thing). But when someone spends their days telling us how to live our lives and then spends their nights sleeping with their staffers' spouses or picking up strangers in airports, I have a huge problem with that.
I really don't understand why this is news. Men cheat on their wives. Senators, businessmen, truck drivers. It doesn't matter what they do, there are just some men who have affairs. The fact that the Senator had an affair has nothing to do with his job performance. It seems like society is heading in this direction where we like to put people on pedestals,expect them to be saints and impose these moral standards that are impossible to achieve, then cheer as we tear them down for failing.
I guess I prefer a Republican Senator that preaches family values who cheats on his wife than a Democrat Governor who preaches morals while paying an overpriced prostitute.
Is this a more important topic than the distasteful joke by Late Night David Letterman in regards to Gov Palin daughter. Will we see this as the opening news story on Fox News?
Anonymous 6:14. You are right, in normal life, this doesn't matter. Some people are assholes. That doesn't mean that they can't do their jobs.
Of course the difference here is that Ensign makes our lives HIS business. He and his fellows in the Republican party want to impose their public positions on their version of morality on the rest of us without even attempting to live up to those moral standards themselves.
Anonymous 6:17. You must be a Republican. First, the adjective to describe a member of the Demcoratic Party is "Democratic" not "Democrat." The use of the word "Democrat" in that context is a childish practice by small minded people to substitute name calling for actual substance. Besides, I fail to see any difference at all between the two cases you outline. If I heard of a socially conservative governor from the Democratic Party who was using prostitutes, I'd be just as annoyed. But I take it your post was really about trying to get your "they all do it so leave Republicans alone" message out as part of some GOP fake blogger campaign.
Chubb, yes it is more important because Letterman isn't an elected representative with direct influence on policy. By the way, I don't watch Letterman so for days I had no idea what this fuss was about. The joke was that Sarah Palin and her daughter (Willow) were at a Yankees Game and was dismayed when in the 7th Inning Stretch A-Rod knocked up her daughter. As offensive jokes go, this one was pretty lame - and tame. But Sarah just had to continue her "War on the Media."
The news is the hypocrisy. A man who runs on "family values" and "traditional values" should, at a minimum, not sleep around on his wife. If - like most Democrats - he advocated a libertarian approach, I would agree that his private actions would not be relevant.
Since I didn't demand that President Bill Clinton resign over his extramarital affair--nor for lying about said affair--I can't reasonably demand Sen. Ensign to resign for doing the same. Fair is fair.
But Sen. Ensign really went after Clinton and he did demand that Clinton resign... And as LTG mentioned, Ensign has been running as a stalwart supporter of "traditional marriage" for years... So the man is a hypocrite. I hope his Democratic opponent will use that to full effect in the primaries, now that Sen. Ensign's true colors are plain for all to see.
I think that Letterman's joke was in poor taste. He was probably thinking about Bristol--Palin's 18 y.o. daughter who did in fact get knocked up last year--but it was Palin's 14 y.o. daughter Willow who was at the Yankees game with her mother. That's a big oops.
Yes, Dr. S. I don't think it's fair to ask Ensign to resign. But I do think it's fair to ask him to shut up about "traditional marriage."
I guess what this really points up time ad time again, is the old church and state issue. We should NEVER look to our political leaders for moral direction. Does anybody really think they all have not done something incredulous to get to where they are? Maybe a handful, but c'mon, really...we should not look to politicians for moral direction. They are people, not saints, I will allow them their humanity...but I will no longer take their blatant, pathological hypocrisy...I am done with that crap. And by the way, Sarah Palin owes me an apology for shooting wolf pups from a helicopter, for never reading, for being a bimbo with no original ideas, for not being able to conduct a rational, cogent interview, for having dope dealing relatives, for poor vision, she can't see Russia from her house...she is still looking at her own state when she is looking out her window, for being another distasteful Republican hypocrite, willingly trying to insight another civil war with her 'real Americans' talk.
William Wallace.
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