The Political Enclave That Dare Not Speak Its Name
The Sanford and Ensign Scandals Open a Door On Previously Secretive ‘C Street’ Spiritual Haven
By Manuel Roig-Franzia
June 26, 2009No sign explains the prim and proper red brick house on C Street SE. Nothing hints at its secrets. It blends into the streetscape, tucked behind the Library of Congress, a few steps from the Cannon House Office Building, a few more steps to the Capitol. This is just the way its residents want it to be. Almost invisible.
But through one week’s events, this stately old pad – a pile of sturdy brick that once housed a convent – has become the very nexus of American scandal, a curious marker in the gallery of capital shame. Mark Sanford, South Carolina’s disgraced Republican governor and a former congressman, looked here for answers – for support, for the word of God – as his marriage crumbled over his affair with an Argentine woman. John Ensign, the senator from Nevada who just seven days earlier also was forced to admit a career-shattering affair, lives there.
"C Street," Sanford said Wednesday during his diffuse, cryptic, utterly arresting confessional news conference, is where congressmen faced "hard questions."
On any given day, the rowhouse at 133 C St. SE — well appointed, with American flag flying, white-and-green-trimmed windows and a pleasant garden — fills with talk of power and the Lord. At least five congressmen live there, quietly renting upstairs rooms from an organization affiliated with "the Fellowship," the obsessively secretive Arlington spiritual group that organizes the National Day of Prayer breakfast, an event routinely attended by legions of top government officials. Other politicians come to the house for group spirituality sessions, prayer meetings or to simply share their troubles.
The house pulsed with backstage intrigue, in the days and months before the Sanford and Ensign scandals – dubbed "two lightning strikes" by a high-ranking congressional source. First, at least one resident learned of both the Sanford and Ensign affairs and tried to talk each politician into ending his philandering, a source close to the congressman said. Then the house drama escalated. It was then that Doug Hampton, the husband of Ensign’s mistress, endured an emotional meeting with Sen. Tom Coburn, who lives there, according to the source. The topic was forgiveness. "He was trying to be a peacemaker," the source said of Coburn, a Republican from Oklahoma…
The house’s residents mostly adhere to a code of silence about the place, seldom discussing it publicly, lending an aura of mystery to what happens inside and a hint of conspiratorial speculation. In a town where everyone talks about everything, the residents have managed largely to keep such a refuge to themselves and their friends. On a street mostly occupied by Hill staffers and professionals in their 20s and early 30s, some of the Democratic staffers nicknamed it "the Prayer House." On summer evenings, the congressmen would sometimes sit out front smoking cigars and chatting, but what went on inside stayed inside…
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