Gail Collins, John Ensign, and Family Values

I have to agree with some of our readers.

We are spending entirely too much time on frivolous issues such as the Palin “Higher Calling” resignation and Sanford’s sultry Argentinean love affair.

And I won’t even touch the Michael Jackson “issue.”

There are too many other real issues to be discussed and analyzed.

One of them is, of course, the “What Happened in Vegas” issue—one that apparently didn’t stay in Vegas.

And who better to bring us up to date on the latest developments on this non-issue—one that was just about to go off the radar screen—than The New York Times’ Gail Collins.

In an Op-Ed column this morning titled—surprise!—”What Happened in Vegas,” we learn that what had started as just another run-of-the-mill Republican sex scandal, has now turned into what Collins calls a “family affair.”

Most of the “juicy details” about the Ensign family affair are being provided by a member of another family: Doug Hampton, Ensign’s former chief of staff and husband of Cindy—a bookkeeper for Ensign’s PAC—who (Cindy, that is) “was seduced by the senator while they were guests at the Ensign home over the Christmas holidays in 2007.”

Not really part of the story, but revealing nevertheless of a certain human trait called hypocrisy, are the following facts pointed out by Collins:

…that Ensign was one of the people who demanded that President Bill Clinton resign over the Lewinsky affair, that he votes against financing for education and contraception services to combat teenage pregnancy and that he supports a constitutional amendment banning same-sex marriage…

Collins then says something about hypocrisy being a hard market to corner, but that “lately the Republicans have been making a Microsoft-like effort to do it.” But, we’ll let that one slide.

Back to Hampton’s spilling of the family beans.

After providing some interesting details about Ensign living with some other conservative Christian lawmakers in 2008, in a building known as the “Prayer House,” in Washington (Hampton doesn’t mention what they prayed about), Hampton describes one of Ensign’s roommates, Senator Tom Coburn of Oklahoma, “as being particularly vocal about the importance of cash contributions to ‘make these folks whole.’” The “folks” being the grieved Doug and Cindy Hampton.

While Coburn denies this, apparently Ensign parents thought this would be a good idea.

According to Collins:

While Ensign refused to respond to what small and negative minds might regard as blackmail, the senator’s parents gave the Hamptons $96,000. Ensign’s father is a retired casino mogul, and the senator’s lawyer said the money was given “out of concern for the well-being of longtime family friends during a difficult time. The gifts are consistent with a pattern of generosity by the Ensign family to the Hamptons and others.”

Collins concludes, “Truly, this puts a whole new spin on the term ‘family values.’”

But enough about Republican sex scandals and family values. We are spending entirely too much time and (virtual) ink on these. But should you be interested in more “juicy details,” which I doubt, please click here.

Perhaps next week there will be some “real issues” to be dealt with.