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twitterTHE SENATOR’S SCANDAL:
John Ensign signals affair still off-limits
After commenting the day before, he refuses to answer questions
Friday, Aug. 21, 2009 | 2 a.m.
John Ensign
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- John Ensign works on healing image (8-20-2009)
- Report: Officials silent on Ensign's father's casino plan (8-18-2009)
- Heller acknowledges the John Ensign effect (8-13-2009)
- GOP: Ensign affair hurt efforts to field Reid opponent (8-5-2009)
- For now, Ensign in GOP's good graces (8-5-2009)
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Carson City — Sen. John Ensign walked on a Lake Tahoe beach in black tasseled loafers Thursday, prepared to speak about the invasive Asian clams plaguing the lake, but not the scandal that has that has shadowed him since June.
At the annual Lake Tahoe Forum, Ensign attempted to move on from the scandal, refusing to answer questions about his affair with his best friend’s wife, then-staff member Cynthia Hampton, or the $96,000 his parents gave to the woman and her family.
Ensign delivered a 10-minute talk, without notes, to about 200 environmentalists, Lake Tahoe recreation enthusiasts and residents and representatives of government agencies. The group asked no questions.
Ensign trudged off the stage, ignoring a line of reporters until one asked if he was going to answer questions. He paused to address a question about the lake.
Another reporter piped up: “We’ve got to ask you — you know the question is coming.”
Ensign stopped her. “I’ve said everything I was going to say about that yesterday,” he said, referring to brief remarks he made Wednesday to an Associated Press reporter in rural Fernley. He responded to another question about the affair by saying he would not talk about “that.”
Ensign is making his first public swing through Nevada since he admitted to the affair. If Thursday was any indication, he will use the time with constituents and the media to address issues other than the scandal.
The senator has vowed not to resign and to seek reelection when his term is up in 2012.
He did speak briefly about the affair at Wednesday’s Fernley Chamber of Commerce event, where he received a standing ovation. Ensign was asked about his call in 1998 for former President Bill Clinton to step down after it was revealed that the president had an affair with an intern. Ensign told the AP reporter that his situation is different. “I haven’t done anything legally wrong,” he said.
Ensign is spending this week making rural stops. His staff, which has kept his schedule largely under wraps, said he will be in Las Vegas next week.
It has been two months of bad news for Ensign — disclosure of the gift from his parents, the public release of a letter about the affair written by Ensign to Cynthia Hampton, a televised interview with Cynthia Hampton’s husband, Doug Hampton.
At Ensign’s June news conference, where he admitted the affair and said he had made a mistake, he declined to take questions. Since then he has repeatedly declined to answer questions, citing a complaint filed by a public watchdog group.
His visit to Northern Nevada is a sharp contrast to April, when Ensign stopped in Carson City to address the Legislature. He was en route to Iowa, an early presidential nominating state, fueling talk that he could be in line for a spot on the Republican’s 2012 ticket.
He talked about how he would help rebuild the Nevada Republican Party, which had been trounced in 2008.
During Thursday’s appearance, Ensign took a boat ride to check out the Asian clams for himself. Afterward, he retreated to the VIP tent, where he picked at a Danish. Walking to the stage, he shook hands with a couple of audience members.
When he was introduced he drew mild applause — on par with that given Sen. Dianne Feinstein, D-Calif., and Gov. Jim Gibbons.
When it was over, a reporter asked how he was doing.
“I’m doing great,” he said. “This is a perfect day to be out here.”
Discussion: 40 comments so far…
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Yep, good on Ensign. Everyone makes mistakes and I don't hold this against him. I really admire him for admitting his mistakes and now it's time to move on - it's exactly what I would do. John Ensign is an excellent Legislator and I fully expect good things from him in the future. I fully support John Ensign! He's a fighter and I really like that!
A complete liar and hypocrite, a do-nothing politician and a laughing stock. An embarrassment to his state, himself and his staff. That's why they all quit.
A fighter? I guess that's why he has been hiding for the last month and won't answer any questions about the ETHICS violations.
He is from the Sean Inssanity school of political logic: "Well Clinton and the Democrats did it too."
fights for that rich guy, yeah me makes just lovely votes. what deposit box have you been locked in.
Desertsunset, once a trust is broken it is very hard to get it back.
John is so much better than all the other politicians that have had affairs, just ask him ,he'll tell you.
Today's to do list for DS:
1. Defend John Ensign
2. Listen to the Morning Sorcerer Spew spittle
3. Listen to the Dittohead master tell me what to think.
4. Listen to Sean Insannity talk about the dastardly Democrats and the righteous Republicans.
5. Play with my gun.
6. Super glue my TV tuner knob to Fox news.
7. Retire to my cave, it's been a hard day.
"At the annual Lake Tahoe Forum, Ensign attempted to move on from the scandal"
Ensign attempts to move on but the question is.. will the bloggers at the Las Vegas Sun ever move on?
If only this much effort was spent covering Chappaquiddick...
the man is a fraud, dessert sun. if he was running a publicly held business he would have been FIRED!! he's a money changer in the temple, misguided into thinking he's doing the best for his country. thats right, blame the media like they did during watergate and the vietnam war. there are laws for some that dont apply to the honorable john ensign; he's still a fraud.
Cheater, cover-uper and hush-moneyer and now he stands before his constiuents as if he is a pure angel driven to earth by gently falling snow. He is yet another one of many amazing men who lead by words and not deeds and profess a depth of religious belief superior to all others. Yes, religion that was so feared by our founding fathers that they specifically addressed it in our constitution providing freedom of it but not to be involved in the operation of our great nation. Yet we all know his true issue is with his zipper. Why does he not just take himself out of the public spotlight and do the right thing? Everytime he appears the darken image of a fallen sinner shaddows him, advertising the sins he committed and the harm he did to his fellow man. Nevada can do without this. Thank You.
johnnie boy "i slept with my best friend /senior staffer's wife then ran to mommy and daddy to fix my boo boo" ensign...
what a complete and total embarrassment to the poor poor terribly misguided republican party...
a snot nosed spoiled punk...
and yet, he is a perfect symbol for the republican party...
arrogant...
condescending...
pretends to be religious...
a liar...
a hypocrite...
a fraud...
a weasel...
morally bankrupt...
let's face it folks...
the poor poor terribly misguided republican party is a joke...
a bunch a spoiled rich kids...
and those who want to pretend that they are spoiled rich kids even though they really aren't...
like joe the plumber...
who fight for the really really spoiled rich kids...
like ensign's mommy and daddy...
at the expense of those less fotunate...
they want to suck on every last penny...
even if it kills the children of those less fortunate because they can not afford health care...
what a sad sad group...
what an embarrassment!!!
hey mred...
you might want to add this to the list...
8. Log onto the Las Vegas Sun website to spread a little misinformation and do some fear mongering.
John engsign trying to manage the message. Look the facts are simple. He's a stooge. A joke as a man and as a senator. He has no chance to win re-election and his daddy will point that out to him when he tries to dip into the family money pit. Just hope he can keep his mouth shut until he fades into our distant memories.
Is he arrogant, a slow learner, or cleverly betting that the voters will forget about his affair by the time the 2012 election rolls around?
All Senators seem to be arrogant & condescending (did you see Barney Frank's townhall? Or how about Reid's lack of having a townhall, or his "smelly public" comment?), so arrogance is surely a given. As to whether he's slow or clever, I'll bet on the latter provided there aren't any more skeletons in the closet. The voters will probably forgive & forget the affair, especially as it doesn't seem to have swayed his vote on anything (though his wife is surely another matter).
Can he be trusted? Can anyone in Congress be trusted? Not hardly -- they're politicians whose main loyalty is to their own perpetuation in power and the special interests that support them. "Trust but verify" are watchwords the public should take to heart.
If he really wants to try and regain public support, he should hold several healthcare townhalls and try to discuss/advance proposed alternatives to the DemSocs' ObamaCare disaster-in-the-making. He'll take plenty of flak of course, but if he can remain cool, he'll at least get credit for having the courage to face the public (unlike Prince Harry or AIPAC Berkley).
hey nlv...
if he wanted to be trusted...
he would call for his own ethics investigation regarding mommy and daddy's gifts...
if you are not the baby's daddy you demand a dna test...
right...
but i just don't see the snot nosed spoiled punk doing that...
do you...
in fact...
i see him refusing to answer any questions about it...
and this is after an extended period of sucking his thumb in the fetal position on mommy and daddy's basement floor!!!
Way to be smart Ensign!
Get back to doing the work of the people and addressing the issues that we elected you to address!
The affair has nothing to do with the current events facing this country and those are the issues Ensign needs to focus on.
Keep doing it right and you've got my vote!
Affairs are nobody's business but for the people involved.
Unless you are a US Senator who rides along your parties platform of "family values". In which case you are a hypocrite and you are going to be called out on it.
Howard Cannon
Pat McCarran
Paul Laxalt
Majority Leader Harry Reid
they'll all live forever in the history books.
this is the time for John Ensign to say "Jeez, Mary and Joseph, the first words (when i die) that the New York Times will right in my obituary is that "THEY ALL LAUGHED AT HIM".
Not laughed "with you" John, "at you"....they all laughed.....that's a terrible terrible thing for a man who has risen to such august heights now isn't it Johnnie?....Hey John, your mother wasn't married to your birth father on March 25, 1958 was she Johnnie Boy? They call that an illegitimate child at the C Street Nazi Cult House...right...but what to the troops ...the boys, serving overseas call that kind of child John ??...do they still use the loker room word that begins with the letter "B" that has been used for centuries. For example, let's use it in a sentence: "Doesn't that cur-bas#@d have a lot of unadulterated gall."
At this point John it's deja vu all over again.....after 50 years years you are illigitimate all over again.
Noblemen in Japan through the millenia when found in a similar pickle always commit harry carey....OK COWBOY....take Mike Slanker and Ryan Irwin down with yah. Pond Scum all of you...lowlife, bad actors.
We are being waterboarded by this guy Ensign.
As if the valley doesnt have enough black eyes in the media (worst schools, worst foreclosure, worst health, conmen at MGM CityCenter, Jay Brown and Prive, running out of water) and the litany goes on.
But to have this slow brutal drip drip drip of chinese water torture with the viscious vile, reprobate, filth and mental mayhem of the Ensign story come out every single week or every other week since the middle of June just has to stop.
To paraphrase my Walpole, Massachusetts' own Joseph Nye Welch (a partner at Hale and Dorr) before Senator Joseph McCarthy:
"Until this moment, Senator Ensign, I think I have never really gauged your cruelty or your recklessness. ...Little did I dream you could be so reckless and so cruel as to do such an injury as this to the State of Nevada and to this great nation of our's, the United States of America. It is true that , I regret to say, I fear you, John Ensign, shall cause we Nevadan's of all races and creeds to always bear a scar selfishly and needlessly inflicted by you. If it were in my power to forgive you for your reckless cruelty I would do so. I like to think that I am a gentle man, but your forgiveness will have to come from someone other than me.(and that C-Street Cult House's forgiveness doesn't count, Johnnie) "
When Mike Slanker, Ryan Irwin, Sig Rogich, Michael Steele and your OB/GYN Senator Tom Coburn tried to go on the attack once more and blame Bill and Hillary Clinton, Franklin Roosevelt and Tippecanoe and Tyler too, the people of Nevada and the nation stepped in again and famously rebuked:
" Senator, may we not drop this? We know you say you've done nothing "legally" wrong but please sir,...Let us not assassinate the reputation of the State of Nevada further, Senator. You have done enough. Have you no sense of decency, sir? At long last, have you left no sense of decency?"
ya gotta go John
ya gotta go
you've just gotta go.
Rhode Island has openings.
Have a little decency....go off to a quiet place.
In Rhode Island, if you need a roomie and cant find THE FAMILY, I hear there's a vacancy at the home of Claus Von Bulow
Talk about throwing stones... Hope some of you guys don't live in glass houses...
"Sen. John Ensign walked on a Lake Tahoe beach Thursday..., prepared to speak about the invasive Asian clams plaguing the lake."..."Ensign took a boat ride to check out the Asian clams for himself."
Now if only he had been as consientious and meticulous about trying to stop "...the invasive zipper clams...," he might have saved a lot of embarrassment for himself, his family and his State. The little buggers will get you every time, won't they John?
Nice how Ensign decides what questions he will answer..........does he think he's bush ?!?!
What about his involvement in the C Street house and the cult-like "family" group?!?!?!
Wagging your weenie is just the tip of the issues Mr. Ensign.......this goes much deeper than your tearing apart two families.
"Talk about throwing stones... Hope some of you guys don't live in glass houses..."
It's a great Republican past time.
Both the Republican and Democrat parties live in glass houses and are so busy throwing stones at each other, their houses may be destroyed in time. Meanwhile independent thinkers will build a large solid house in the middle of the political spectrum.
John Ensign is a man of integrity. Everybody on C Street says so.
See:
http://notionscapital.wordpress.com/2009...
Ensign is a bad joke. He sits on our face and farts every day he stays in the U.S. Senate. You have to be a thoroughly morally and ethically bankrupt Republican --- I know, most of them are --- to even consider supporting Ensign. This isn't a case where you agree or disagree with him on public policy, this is a fundamental core issue: the man chastises and criticizes others for what is inappropriate behavior, pretends to be a man of moral and ethical standards, and then turns around a hires a married woman and pays her with taxpayer funds so that he can carry on an affair with her. And to keep her close, he also hires the woman's husband at taxpayer expense, which is a perfect ruse for someone wanting to sleep with a staffer's wife while having the perfect cover story of her husband working for him too. The man is a hypocrite and that C Street group; well, those people are crazy. Ensign? He's crazy like a fox! And its time to resign, fox!
What will be Ensign's selling point as to why we should re-elect him in 2012?
"Bill Clinton's affair was worse than mine?"
"How I profited from my wife's affair with a congressman" by Doug Hampton
LOL
Ensign is right. He's said all of the things he had to say about sleeping with a woman not his wife. It's not pretty, but now it's a non-story. He needs to get back to work fighting the Democrat's House of Darkness machine.
Maybe you wish it was a non-story, but that won't make it so. Such a typical Republican stance, I believe it so it must be true.
henderson, keep doing it right? I was led to believe what he did was wrong, of course he won't admit it, he won't even talk about it.
Politicians hardly ever do anything wrong, they feel that if they don't keep the pot boiling and admit their wrongs, with time the public will forget about it. Let this be one time that the publics voice will never be quiet.
Kicking a dead dog won't make him leave the road. It's futile. I look at this non-story and look at the futility expressed by Ensign's opponents and laugh at them. By 2012, Ensign will have fought our battles and hopefully kicked the Democrat's back to where they belong: the second shelf of political life. The healthcare fight is a good example of socialism spreading in the country. It needs to be defeated.
Ensign still to this day has higher approval ratings than Reid.
nance;
and isn't that a sad & pathetic commentary on the state of this state?
Not really.....Ensign should be slammed hard for his affair but other than that he has done a good job actually representing the majority of the state.
Reid has done some good, too. He helped passed the Iraq war resolution. He helped passed FISA. He did not push for investigations of the Bush adminstration than nor now. He came out in favor of the Nevada ban on Gay Marriage.
But will all his power he has not bring home the bacon. Nevada is ranked on the bottom of getting money return back to the state on a per capita basis and that continued with the "stimulus" bill.
Reid did get Cash for Clunkers passed and he has been there giving away all that cash for corportations and banks. And now, he is pushing a government takeover of health care.
So, I can see why Nevadans are more upset with Reid than Ensign.
yes, well, ensign isn't doing much of anything, so it's hard to pick him apart for his "body of work."
The Republicans prove they are as corrupt as the Democrats. We have no real choice in this country.
The whole Washington area is a whores nest. The Politicians need whores because they feel comfortable with their own kind
Nevada voters should be shopping for 2 new senators, John and Harry, you both should get a pink slip, asap.
Wasn't Senator Ensign in charge of getting Republicans elected to the US Senate back in 2008 when they lost 8 seats? Yes, I agree with those who say keep up the good work, Senator Ensign!
And to all those who say Senator Ensign is a hypocrite for calling on his fellow Republican Senator Larry Craig to resign for tap-dancing in the men's room and bringing disgrace to the US Senate, that was totally different too!
Definitions from Random House Dictionary. I believe they aptly describe John Ensign and his behavior or lack thereof.
"Hypocrisy: a pretense of having desirable or publicly approved attitudes, beliefs, principles, etc., that one does not actually possess."
"Ethical: In accordance with professional standards for right conduct or practice."
"Legal: Permitted by Law."
Legal actions are not always ethical actions. Ethical actions reflect a higher moral standard.
Apparently John Ensign, subscriber of the Christian "C Street" beliefs, abides by the latter.