1 Boring Old Man

In the scope of things, the antics of Alaska Governor Sarah Palin, South Carolina Governor Mark Sanford, and Nevada Senator John Ensign may seem like side shows that detract from the important things on our plate left in such disarray from eight years of Republican incompetence. But from another perspective, they are examples of what happens when we elect people that tag along with some ideology and get themselves elected. John Ensign seems to be such a person. He was elected to the Senate in 2000 as a strong Religious Right candidate [he is a member of the Pentecostal International Church of the Foursquare Gospel]. His public confession of an affair was plastered all over the news recently. His affair moved to the back burner when Mark Sanford took center stage [then the celebrity deaths, then Sarah Palin’s resignation]. But Ensign is back on the front page today because of this interview with the husband of Cindy Hampton, Ensign’s lover/girlfriend/affairee [Hampton speaks publicly, says Ensign paid severance].

This is a strange story. Cindy and Doug Hampton were close friends with John and Darlene Ensign. After a burglary at the Hamptons, they moved in with the Ensigns. That’s where the affair started. It was quickly discovered, but it continued. Now the story gets strange. Doug Hampton and Darlene Ensign are calling around trying to get someone to put a stop to it. The story is told as if Cindy was a passive character in the story. Finally, Hampton gets the group at the C Street Christian Fellowship to intervene. In the Meeting, Ensign agrees to end things – writing a letter to Darlene and maybe agreeing to some kind of financial settlement. Apparently, shortly after the meeting, Ensign called Cindy telling her to ignore the letter – he’d been blindsided by the meeting, and the affair continued until August.

Somewhere in all of this, Ensign gets Doug another job and pays off Cindy. Ensign’s wife Darlene was apparently involved in trying to relocate the Hampton’s. Lawyers are meeting throughout all of this, but how it finally blew up is unclear. Hampton’s story gets confusing and it becomes impossible to determine what actually happened. Mutual accusations seem to be the rule now, and I expect the whole unadulterated truth will never be clear [Solomon might have used his sword in a different way with this case since there appear to be no innocents in the whole piece].

Forgetting the other players for the moment,  this is a fundamentalist christian Senator having an affair with his good friend’s wife [both being employees] under the nose of his wife and her husband. When confronted by his super-christian colleagues, he puts on an act, and continues cavorting. He finally comes clean when faced with exposure. All of his public confession and his letter written in front of his colleagues was cached in terms of christian morality, though none of his behavior seemed to have anything to do with his stated morals.