Social cons have this party constantly in turmoil.

Sounds a lot like a condemnation of SoCons to me…surely you can see the reason for my reaction from this quote for what it is.

I have not seen that Ensign is doing what you claim, that he is trying to stay in the limelight.

I wouldn’t argue with that had I said Ensign is purposely trying to keep this all in the spotlight…but that’s not what I’ve said. wanting this to stay in the limelight would be so colossally stupid to be beyond belief…What I am saying here goes more to incompetence and a total lack of self control in this situation because Ensign’s actions do him harm and help him not one whit!

Ensign may not be fit to serve, but I know those who want government to control our lives are not fit to serve. And I know our party has a history of leaders and supporters that fold every time there is a scandal.

The point I’m making over and over here…and most of the folks On Erick’s side of this post has nothing to do with Ensign not being fit to serve…it’s simply the analogy that when you find yourself in a hole…the first step to getting out is to stop digging. It’s really that simple.

I think I can speak for most of us by saying the issue isn’t whether Ensign should have even resigned his leadership position in the party over this…let alone whether he should be forced from office. The issue is simply that he needs to shut up and let this story die and stop digging himself deeper by continuing to throw around accusations in public whether they have merit or not because he appears to be the bully in this mess in the public’s eyes!

I am not anti-Socon, I am against the belief in big government and that we are so shocked when people in government do stupid things like people not in government do. Ensign may not be fit to serve, but I know those who want government to control our lives are not fit to serve. And I know our party has a history of leaders and supporters that fold every time there is a scandal. I also know the Dems never quit until they are lead out by the police or voted out of office.

Everything else that goes on beyond that is debatable and I laid out my position on that in numerous posts below

I was replying to a specific point…that being:

Or, What If?…

The cuckolded husband is a wife-beater?

Just sayin’ that these situations aren’t always so cut-and-dried…

my point was simply that just because the guy might be a wife beater it doesn’t excuse Ensign’s indiscretion…

The guy may in deed be a scum bag…and he could well be guilty of blackmail….but instead everyone sees a Rewpublican Senator using his power and perks to cover up sleeping with a subordinate and smear her husband’s honor using his press operation.

Simple common sense should tell Ensign he should shut up and get this out of the press as soon as possible…but instead we’re going to be treated to months or years of charge/counter charge in a salacious tabloid worthy story involving a powerful Republican Senator who was in leadership attacking a poor underprivileged husband by falsely accusing him of blackmail!

I’m not saying the above is the case…but it’s the way it’ll be played!

By now you’d think politicians would have learned the first rule of holes*…

But no, they just can’t drop that shovel.

*when you’re in one, stop digging

Maybe if we had 60 Senators, we could indulge in publicly horsewhipping one of our own who’d screwed up. But we don’t have 60 Senators, do we? We have 40.

We should just excuse everything and act like it didn’t happen?

You guys who think there is ever any reason to criticize a Republican under any circumstances because “We need to win”….or “We need a big tent” etc sicken me…

is their nothing you guys won’t excuse in the name of winning?

As to what we want to have happen…Ensign should just shut the hell up and not drag this out by making public accusations using the power of his office and his access to the press thus keeping this scandal front and center for the next how many months or years!

But having admitted it…he needs to shut up about it and stop dragging out the story by throwing accusations at the husband…what he’s saying may be true…but the public isn’t going to look at that…they arer going to see it as Erick framed it here…

“Ensign is the powerful politician using his power and access to the press to smear a middle class guy who is a victim of Ensign’s infidelity with his wife…”

By going public with the blackmail accusations and using his press operation to do so…all of a sudden the focus is off the scumbag and his blackmail…and on Ensign as a cad and a politician willing to do or say anything to protect his perks and power.

=)

The issue here is….having admitted the affair…he should be trying to stay out of the public eye, not throw gas on the fire by airing all this out in public….

If the aggreived husband tried to blackmail him…report it to the authorities and make sure he’s prosecuted…but shut up and keep it out of the papers…

You don’t have to be a SoCon to see the simple common sense of that last part and you be-clown yourself by using this as a chance to forward your own anti SoCon Biases!

I agree with most of what Erick said here…I’m just unclear if he meant it…or if he was making a sarcastic case as to why those Republicans who are asking for Ensign’s head on a platter are wrong…I agree with the latter as well…

And just from a strict political perspective, this going public against the husband with an extortion charge turns a manageable episode into a much bigger and uncontrollable spectacle that will last much longer as this extortion charge triggers a lot more questions that easilty could do unrepairable damage to Ensign’s political career..

civil truth says all that needs to be said here:

he did so for some strange calculation that raising this charge publicly would enhance his position in the eyes of the public. Once again he put his personal interests above that of the public interest – here the public interest being that justice carried out and as a warning to future extortioners.

(Just as in the adultery he put his personal interests above the interests of his constituency and supporters and the interests of those of his fellow Republicans….

He should let the authorities handle the blackmail and shut up to take this off the front page