Long John Ensign, unhappy homemaker, typical GOP hypocrite

Yes, as the Washington Post reports to absolutely no one's surprise, yet another fallen Puritan slithers among us: Sen. John Ensign, "considered a rising star in the Republican Party, yesterday acknowledged an extramarital affair with a former campaign staffer who is married to one of the lawmaker's former legislative aides."

But here was the choice part: "He flew home yesterday morning after informing GOP leaders on Capitol Hill of his impending announcement" -- to which those GOP leaders almost assuredly responded, Oh, is it your turn this month?

We simply never realized, until the advent of the modern GOP, that the protection and preservation of family values entails porking every willing and available lass within grabbable sight, or, if the family-values protector so prefers, as has sometimes been the case, every laddie within sight.

It's sickening. Not the adultery part -- most among us couldn't care less about that. John Kennedy, for instance, perhaps the all-time greatest debaucher, tried setting an unbeatable record for getting illicitly laid, and no one in the know cared then, or now, but only because he refrained from lecturing you about keeping your pants on (my apologies, ladies, for the gender-exclusiveness, but it always seems to be the male politician who strays) and devoting yourself to the idyllic fireside contentment of family warmth.

In short, to each his own, although I can't say I'm an advocate of Kennedyesque comportment. I tend to agree with his predecessor Harry Truman, who contended that if you can't trust a man to keep his zipper up while away from his wife, you can't trust him on anything. But, whatever. I have my own swinish faults to conquer.

What really rankles, though, are folks like some right-wing apologist I suffered on some news show last night, muddling, as he did, the partisan distinction.

Oh, boys will be boys, he said, whether Democrat or Republican. The first part is true, but only one of the latter is likely to croon moralistic sermons in your bedroom, after having just banged "a former campaign staffer who is married to one of [his] former legislative aides."