Undercover In The Rotunda

John Ensign got the stakeout treatment yesterday, but the Senator wasn't all that forthcoming:

Confronted by the CNN team today, Ensign denied that he'd violated ethics rules.

"You can just see our statements on that," he said. "I think it's pretty clear. I said in the past I recommended him for jobs, just like I recommended a lot of people. But we absolutely did nothing except for comply exactly with what the ethics laws and the ethics rules of the Senate state. We were very careful."

Bash asked Ensign if he'd considered resigning.

"I am focused on doing my work," he said. "I'm gonna continue to focus on doing my work."

Ensign also said that he and his office "will cooperate with any official inquiries."

I would say that it's embarrassing for any politician to be subject to a stakeout. You don't look like the most innocent man that way. And it's good to see the cable nets doing some legitimate news-gathering. In fact, this resembles nothing so much as what Mike Stark's been doing on Capitol Hill for months now, confronting Republicans as they move around Washington. But Ensign got off pretty easily here. None of the core problems discussed in the New York Times piece were really given a full airing. It's hard to get all of that out in an impromptu interview, but the reporters could have been a bit more prepared.

Tale Of Two

I try extremely hard not to watch the cable nets anymore, but I'm sure they're going on and on about David Letterman's extortion plot and his revelation of an affair with a former assistant. The plotter was a CBS News employee who lived with the former assistant and found out about the trysts from her diaries. It's unclear whether Letterman was married at the time of the affairs - though probably not. Point being, he immediately came clean and stopped the extortionist, people stray and it's his personal life and all that.

But as long as we're talking about affairs and payoffs and the rest, it should be noted that while Letterman didn't give in to the extortion, John Ensign did, and may have broken multiple laws in the process.

Early last year, Senator John Ensign contacted a small circle of political and corporate supporters back home in Nevada — a casino designer, an airline executive, the head of a utility and several political consultants — seeking work for a close friend and top Washington aide, Douglas Hampton.

“He’s a competent guy, and he’s looking to come back to Nevada. Do you know of anything?” one patron recalled Mr. Ensign asking.

The job pitch left out one salient fact: the senator was having an affair with Mr. Hampton’s wife, Cynthia, a campaign aide. The tumult that the liaison was causing both families prompted Mr. Ensign, a two-term Republican, to try to contain the damage and find a landing spot for Mr. Hampton.

In the coming months, the senator arranged for Mr. Hampton to join a political consulting firm and lined up several donors as his lobbying clients, according to interviews, e-mail messages and other records. Mr. Ensign and his staff then repeatedly intervened on the companies’ behalf with federal agencies, often after urging from Mr. Hampton.

While the affair made national news in June, the role that Mr. Ensign played in assisting Mr. Hampton and helping his clients has not been previously disclosed. Several experts say those activities may have violated an ethics law that bars senior aides from lobbying the Senate for a year after leaving their posts [..]

And Mr. Ensign allowed Senator Tom Coburn, a friend and fellow conservative Christian, to serve as an intermediary with the Hamptons in May in discussing a large financial settlement, to help them rebuild their lives.

This will undoubtedly be the last thing I write about this, but I wonder if that comparison will ever be made by the Sarah Palin acolytes or other Letterman-haters on the right?

If You Take Out People Who Die, Americans Live Forever!

I hit this in my liveblogging of the public option debate, but I want to go back to it because it's simply crazy. John Ensign, the adulterous Senator from Nevada who had his parents pay off his mistress and her family in possible violation of campaign laws, put forward the following argument to prove the awesomeness of the US health care system:

"Are you aware that if you take out gun accidents and auto accidents, that the United States actually is better than those other countries?" Ensign said. Sen. Kent Conrad (D-ND) had been citing the health care systems of France, Germany, Japan and Canada as more effective, but with lower costs.

Conrad responded that one can bend statistics in all sorts of ways.

"But that doesn't have anything to do with health care. Auto accidents don't have anything to do with h--," Ensign said, cutting himself off. "I mean we're just a much more mobile society. ... We drive our cars a lot more, they do public transportation. So you have to compare health care system with health care system."

I'm sure that if you take out truffle and eclair accidents, France's health care outcomes skyrocket, too. But I'm wondering why this means anything, even if it were true, which it isn't. First of all, if Ensign wants to improve health care in America, he seems to be saying that the way to do that is to move away from a car-centered transportation system and engage in strict gun control. Somehow I doubt that was his intention, since he's never cast a vote in favor of more mass transit or bike lanes or gun control in his life, but there's no other way to characterize this argument.

So in order to properly figure out what in the hell Ensign was trying to prove with that comment, you have to recognize that he read it in some talking points somewhere. And the talking points trace back to - you guessed it - Betsy McCaughey.

Where did he come up with such an argument? TPMDC's Brian Beutler tracks down the source: Betsy McCaughey said as much when she appeared on the Daily Show last month. McCaughey is the former lieutenant governor of New York and the first person to push the idea that, under health care reform, the government would decide who gets care, who lives and who dies -- a precursor to the "death panel" articulated by Sarah Palin.

On the show, McCaughey said that, without violence and auto accidents, the U.S. would have the highest life expectancy in the world. It was an attempt to undermine an argument for reform, that the U.S. spends more money than any other country but still lags in life expectancy.

The Wall Street Journal explains that McCaughey got the idea from a 2006 report published by conservative think tank American Enterprise Institute.

As that last link notes, the OECD rebuts this talking point, saying that the AEI report is "based in part on GDP. If you don’t factor in GDP, the U.S. ranks 17th in the world for life expectancy when the high U.S. rate of fatal injuries is ignored." In fact, even the report's writers walked away from this statement in future reports. It's a moot point anyway, it says nothing about the health care system itself, nor is it comfort to anyone who experiences a gunshot or a car accident in the US, that if their death gets factored out, then the system works.

So the real lesson here is that the entire GOP position on health care - or really, anything - is based on irrelevant misinformation, and when you're looking for such misinformation, all roads lead to Betsy McCaughey.

The Opening On Tom Coburn

Other than it being a breach of ethics, I don't care about the mini-Peyton Place going on with John Ensign and the Hampton family who worked for him, including Cindy, with whom he had an adulterous affair. I guess Ensign paid the family, but he didn't actually do it, his mother did. Adulterer, conservative, hypocrite, got it.

What does interest me is the role of Tom Coburn (R-OK) in all of this. Hampton's husband Doug suggested that Coburn came up with the idea to pay off the family. Now remember, Coburn is the guy who goes on and on in the Senate about fiscal responsibility and debt and how we can't afford anything. The hundred-grand to clear up your wandering willie problem, I guess, is OK. But here's the kicker.

Sen. Tom Coburn (R-Okla.) on Thursday said he would not testify in court or before the Ethics Committee about any advice he gave Sen. John Ensign (R-Nev.) on how to handle his affair with a former staffer, citing constitutional protections for communications during religious counseling, as well as the patient confidentiality privilege.

“I was counseling him as a physician and as an ordained deacon. ... That is privileged communication that I will never reveal to anybody. Not to the Ethics Committee, not to a court of law, not to anybody,” Coburn said.

First of all, Coburn is an Ob/Gyn. Unless Ensign was trying to grow a womb, I don't know what the medical nature of their conversations would be. Second, I don't think any of this rises to the level of criminality or even a breach of Senate rules. But it's sublime to see Coburn, the self-styled pillar of moral rectitude in the Senate, arrogantly deny any view into his own behavior at the Ethics Committee. Smart Democrats would throw this right in his face every time he tries to derail a bill by talking about the cost or the possibility of corruption. They could make his life miserable. After a few months of it, I'll bet the WATB would decide not to run for re-election. He's only happy being a thorn in the sides of others, after all.

...now, if this was federal campaign money being tracked through Ensign's parents, then we have some kind of hush money deal. But I think he structured it with just enough plausible deniability to get away with it.

Moral Superiority

Given the Sanford affair today, for some reason I view this standing ovation for John Ensign in a new context. Again, his personal life is none of my concern, but the same people who stand on a soapbox made out of Bibles really look like ridiculous moralizers right now. Everyone shut up about everyone else's sex life and get your nose out of my bedroom.

The Little Ensign That Could

This John Ensign story just gets worse and worse for him. As it turns out, he wasn't being blackmailed by a cuckold; he was pre-empting a potential disclosure on Fox News, and a lot of people had prior knowledge about the affair, including the network and key Senators, while it was happening.

The unethical behavior and immoral choice of Senator Ensign has been confronted by me and others on a number of occasions over this past year. In fact one of the confrontations took place in February 2008 at his home in Washington DC (sic) with a group of his peers. One of the attendee’s (sic) was Senator Tom Coburn from Oklahoma as well as several other men who are close to the Senator. Senator Ensign’s conduct and relentless pursuit of my wife led to our dismissal in April of 2008. I would like to say he stopped his heinous conduct and pursuit upon our leaving, but that was not the case and his actions did not subside until August of 2008.

No wonder the Republicans don't really want to talk about this--they've known about it for over a year. Here's what Coburn had to say:

Reporters mobbed Tom Coburn of Oklahoma, who shares an apartment with Ensign on Capitol Hill. "I'm not answering any Ensign questions," he announced. "You can ask all you want."

"You don't have any thoughts?"

"I don't have any thoughts."

"Have you had a chance to talk about it?"

"I'm just not going to comment."

Finally, Coburn was badgered into making a defense. "He is a bright young man," the senator said of his 51-year-old colleague. "Lots of people make mistakes."

The details in the letter are pretty juicy. I would say Ensign's in some trouble and this won't go away. But the best take I've seen is from David Kurtz:

While Norm Coleman was battling for his political life in 2008 in a race he ultimately lost to Al Franken by a mere 312 votes, his colleague John Ensign -- whose job as chairman of the NRSC was helping GOP senators like Norm get re-elected -- was off having an affair and finding jobs for his mistress' family.

Hilarious

Ensign Provided The Hush Money Already?

The John Ensign story, to me, was simply one about conservative hypocrisy on family values, and I left it at that. Now, in the wake of Ensign quitting his leadership post, we're seeing all kinds of allegations of hush money and use of campaign funds or even taxpayer-funded Senate staff funds, and now we're getting into the realm of the illegal.

The son of the couple at the center of the sex scandal that has engulfed Sen. John Ensign was being paid by National Republican Senatorial Committee in 2008 at the same time his mother was having an affair with the Nevada Republican.

Both Doug and Cynthia Hampton were already working in senior positions for Ensign when their son Brandon Hampton was hired to do “research policy consulting” for the NRSC in March 2008.

The younger Hampton, 19, was paid $5,400 before he left the Ensign office in August last year, Federal Election Commission records show.

That means during March and April 2008, three members of the Hampton family were working for Ensign. Both Doug and Cynthia Hampton stopped working for Ensign at the end of April 2008.

In addition to the son, both Hamptons saw bumps in their salaries around the time of the affair.

Reportedly, Doug Hampton sought hush money in exchange for keeping the affair private, possibly because the family lost a bundle in the housing market in Nevada. But it looks like the Senator may have already been paying the family. And payoffs with taxpayer money takes this into a whole new area.

...Paul Blumenthal has more.

The Gingrich Faction

Adding John Ensign to Rudy Giuliani, Newt Gingrich, in all likelihood John McCain given the timing, etc., we're getting close to a MAJORITY of the Presidential candidates from the "family values" party, Republicans, having extramarital affairs. Plenty of Democrats have them, too - but there's a difference in sanctimony here. Republicans have this self-delusion that they are somehow pristine and pure, and the hypocrisy is staggering.

...In case I didn't make my point clear, I'm saying that what goes on inside one's marriage is the business of that couple and only that couple, period, and we all should generally stay the hell out of making value judgments because we're all imperfect people (ESPECIALLY politicians with a lot of power). My perception is that Republicans continue to stick their noses in people's bedrooms, despite the fact that they have proven themselves to be just as fallen. I don't think they'll take the right message from Ensign's troubles, either.

Don't These Conservatives Know They Are Violating The First Amendment?

Here's Sen. Jon Ensign (R-NV) saying that Sarah Palin is not qualified to be President.

GILLAN: do you think she’s qualified to be President?

ENSIGN: well, I do not think that Barack Obama or her are experienced enough to be President of the United States - neither one of them, and Hillary Clinton was much more qualified to be President than Barack Obama was, but that who the nominee is. John McCain is much more qualified than Barack Obama and certainly Joe Biden is much more qualified than Sarah Palin is. I’d rather have the most qualified person at the top of the ticket, not number two.

Ensign joins Chuck Hagel (R-NE), who said "There is no question that this candidate is arguably the thinnest-résumé candidate for Vice-President in the history of America.” And he joins former Republican Secretary of State and McCain supporter Lawrence Eagleburger, who said "I don't think at the moment she is prepared to take over the reins of the presidency." And Colin Powell. And Reagan official Ken Duberstein.

Now I know a lot of these guys, at least the ones who have endorsed Obama, are just jumping on the bandwagon. But they are all using Palin as the pivot point, and in particular pointing out that she's not qualified. Well, the Alaska Governor has news for them. "You're violating the First Amendment!"

HOST: Is the news media doing a good job—are you getting a fair shake, are the Republicans getting a fair shake this year?

PALIN: I don't think they're doing their job when they suggest that calling a candidate out on their record, their plans for this country, and their associations is mean-spirited or negative campaigning. If they convince enough voters that that is negative campaigning, for me to call Barack Obama out on his associations, then I don't know what the future of our country would be in terms of First Amendment rights and our ability to ask questions without fear of attacks by the mainstream media.

mp3

I wish these Republicans - as well as Republican media figures like David Brooks, Peggy Noonan, and George Will - would have checked their pocket Constitutions before criticizing Palin. Now they're all going to have to go to jail. Sad.

Keeping It To 8 Losses Would Be Nice

Fresh off of failing to recruit anyone decent to run as a Republican for the US Senate and seeing:

• loony Steve Pearce use Club for Growth money to beat the more moderate Heather Wilson in New Mexico's primary, putting that Senate seat against Ton Udall out of reach

• an 85 year-old former Green Party candidate win the Republican primary in Montana

• the golden boy candidate Jim Ogonowski fail to get on the ballot in Massachusetts

...NRSC Chair Jon Ensign (won't be NRSC Chair for long-NV) has settled on a at least we're not going to lose the right to filibuster strategy to fire up his base:

NRSC chair John Ensign has moved the goal posts, according to the Savannah Morning News, saying that the GOP will have succeeded if they don't lose more than eight seats.

Ensign pointed out that if the Dems win nine seats they'll get to the filibuster-proof magic number of 60 -- at which point, Ensign warned, "they will be able to do pretty much whatever they want."

So if the Dems can't get to a 60-seat super-majority, the GOP will have won. Talk about lowering the bar.

That's not lowering the bar, that's throwing the bar on the ground and stepping on any ants that try to get near it.

Meanwhile, Democrats have great recruits almost everywhere, including Al Franken, who won the endorsement of the DFL Caucus in Minnesota this weekend.

It's a good time to be the Senate Guru.

Questioning The Facts That Don't Fit The Dementia

The neocons call for Team B:

Senate Republicans are planning to call for a congressional commission to investigate the conclusions of the new National Intelligence Estimate on Iran as well as the specific intelligence that went into it, according to congressional sources.

The move is the first official challenge, but it comes amid growing backlash from conservatives and neoconservatives unhappy about the assessment that Iran halted a clandestine nuclear weapons program four years ago. It reflects how quickly the NIE has become politicized, with critics even going after the analysts who wrote it, and shows a split among Republicans.

Sen. John Ensign (R-Nev.) said he plans to introduce legislation next week to establish a commission modeled on a congressionally mandated group that probed a disputed 1995 intelligence estimate on the emerging missile threat to the United States over the next 15 years.

If Democrats dare to allow this politicization of the intelligence community, I really have to throw up my hands. But I don't think they will. I must admit to being amused by this freak-out on the right, where conflicting opinions MUST be wrong and must be challenged. If the NIE says Iran doesn't have a nuclear weapons program, the NIE must be doctored. Contrary opinions don't exist.

The truth is that the nation's intelligence professionals understand that Iran retains key capabilities to restart a nuclear program, and may do so. But the NIE reflects an assessment of the facts as they are, not as neocon warmongers wish them to be.

What's breathtaking is how the Administration is truly acting as if nothing happened. They're still moving forward on a missile defense program that is now simply ludicrous, as nobody has the capability to launch missiles that the program would purport to shoot down (even though it can't). They're still seeking support for sanctions against the Islamic Republic, and they're actually receiving that support.

"Iran continues to represent a threat," Mrs (German Chancellor Angela) Merkel said during a joint news conference with Mr Sarkozy in Paris.

She did not specifically express support for a new UN sanctions resolution against Iran, which the US is calling for.

"We and our partners would like to continue with the UN process," Mrs Merkel said.

"I think we and our partners need to continue to seek dialogue with Iran," she said.

Mr (French President Nicolas) Sarkozy said he agreed with his German counterpart that Iran still posed a danger, and that he supported the push for more sanctions.

"Notwithstanding the latest elements, everyone is fully conscious of the fact that there is a will of the Iranian leaders to obtain nuclear weapons.

"What made Iran move up to now, it was sanctions and firmness," he said.

Look, the neocons have been wrong about every foreign policy challenge of the last 50 years. They make things up whenever the facts don't fit their politics. The great danger is that the people in power act based on those self-created facts. Frankly, let's see some hearings on the Iran NIE. I'd love to know why the report was delayed for about a year. I'd love to know why the President first said that he was informed about changes in the intelligence on Iran in August, but he wasn't told what the changes were. I'd love to know if this speculation is true.

There are, oversimplifying, two threads going around, one that the 'Iran doesn't have an active program' preliminary finding was circulating in the Administration in late '06 (Hersh, etc), and the other that Bush was told about the upcoming finding in August by McConnell, after which he changed his characterization so as not to be so obviously lying about the nature of the threat (all the while still intentionally leaving a grossly misleading impression).

The two threads can be reconciled. The basis for the findings had, indeed, been circulating beginning in late 2006, and ever since. One has to assume that Cheney and his forces marshaled full fire on those findings, and successfully suppressed them, preventing their release. That effort, however, eventually failed, probably due to intelligence and Pentagon unwillingness to take the fall for another war.

What happened in early August was not that Bush learned of the findings, but that McConnell informed him that the NIE containing the findings would be released. Those on the side of releasing them (which had to have included Gates) simply won the battle, and either faced down Cheney, threatened to resign if they lost or utilized whatever other strategy required. It was not the discovery of the underlying truth of the findings that caused the change in rhetoric (becoming more vague on Iran's nuclear status, but more bellicose on Iran generally). It was the realization that the NIE would become public.

Bang that gavel. Thanks, Sen. Ensign.

WideStance Pretty Much Done

Jon Ensign's call for Larry Craig's resignation is most important, because he's the head of the NRSC, the campaign committee for Republicans. He's essentially signaling that Craig will get no support in 2008. That's pretty much a death knell.

Light posting the rest of the week, as I'm off to beautiful Palm Desert for a few days. Should be 118 in the shade. Yay!

Vernon Lee will be holding down the fort.