Coburn is an OB/GYN.

I what capasity was he acting as a physician?

But they Walk With God. Didn't King David payoff his mistress too?

I didn't know that Sen. Tom Coburn is a priest.

I didn't know that advising a cheating husband to bribe his mistress counted as either medical or religious advice.

Coburn has waffled to and fro when asked about Ensign. He's been lying all the while. Doug Hampton told Ralston that he went to C Street and talked to Coburn and other GOP leaders about Ensign's affair with his wife. Hampton also said it was Coburn's idea to give the Hamptons $1,000,000, to help them pay off the mortgage on their home and move out of state.

What may kill Ensign's career, I think, is not the sleaze or the hypocrisy. It's the appearance that he - a U.S. Senator, fer chrissake! - needed Mommy and Daddy to buy him out of a mess.

Okay, I have to say that even I, with my filthy mind and inability to be surprised by most anything a loudly professing evangelical Christian does in private, did not see the payola-from-parents-of-the-adulterer angle coming.

The hell is wrong with these people?!

A hundred K piece of tail?
I thought GOPers hated big spends.

So, let's get this straight,

1) Senator Coburn advises another senator to pay off his mistress and order the mistress and her family out of town.

2) He then refuses to answer questions regarding this because he was acting as the collegues "physician and spiritual adviser".

3) Coburn is not a priest

4) Coburn is an OB/GYN. What was the nature of the medical advise? Dare i say...abortion?

Man, I wish I were a Republican. I could get away with murder with morality like this.

"The hell is wrong with these people?!" shortstop

They are the Elect of God, didn't you know?

Ensign's up on CNN right now.

That's one of the problems with believing you can be forgiven for any sin. You go out and try them all. You should try reading Penn Gillete's 'What I Believe' essay about aethesists 'getting it right the first time'.

But they all still pale compared to Jimmy Swaggert in my humble opinion. Asking your middle aged prostitute to whore her teenaged daughter to you is still the record for all time scummery.

Duel dickheads, dicks, whatever...

This Ralston guy sounds like a sharp mind. I hope he keeps up the pusuit and we get some real juicy details. I would sure like to know more about Coburn's involvement. Make this guy squeal. Another Self righteous, holier than thou, sanctimonious republican involved up to his ass in scandel and sex and sleaze. Nice job of a coverup, but Ralston is on the job. Way to go Ralston.

shortstop, my broader theory of right-wing mid-life crisis is that they so resolutely didn't sow their wild oats, so to speak, that they are only now being overcome by things that normal people dealt with in their teens and 20s.

that is, we're dealing with, if you will, "corrupted innocents" rather than "sophisticates."

If Coburn is seriously asserting a physician/patient privilege on behalf of Ensign, then STD, pregnanacy, or maybe insanity ahs to be involved. Just sayin' . . .

"Senator Ensign has complied with all applicable laws and Senate ethics rules."

Except the ones concerning adultery and 'thou shalt not boink thy campaign staff', apparently.

That's just snort-milk-up-your-nose funny.

This is all Bill Clinton's fault!

At this point, I'll do Ensign for $96,000. He doesn't even have to send me a 'day after' letter.

Isn't Ensign a bit too old to have his mommy and daddy bail him out of trouble?

Well, as long as Ensign paid the taxes on the "gift" from his parents, he's complied with all applicable laws. Last I checked, a "gift" that large is able to go by tax free....someone's gotta pay it and the "gift" was presumably to Ensign, but paid to his doinkee on his behalf.

This summer so far has been "laugh at Republicans" season. Ensign, Sanford, Palin, Ensign again...you just never know what entertainment they're gonna serve up next!

Well, it's a good thing the tax rate is so low, otherwise, Ensign's rich parents couldn't have paid his whore.

Eliot Spitzer just released a statement:

$96,000! You got ripped off!

When Republicans say to waivering Democrats, "come on over, the waters better over here", they aren't kidding.

How republicans can spin that they are average joe's is beyond me. That is how they roll, fuck a married chick, subordinate at that, at work, then get mom and dad to pay six figures to her family off while seeking spiritual advise from a vagina doctor while confessing my sins on C-Street so their fellow republicans can figure out how to make it go away.

And they do this while preaching family values and the sanctity of marriage and if the husband doesn't like it, Fox News has their back, so all they have to do is bitch about the liberal media and their constituents will think it's all non-sense.

I swear if I hear any 'Well Clinton...." non-sense I am going to lose it. Not one of these scum bags has been put under oath over there infidelity and their actions are above and beyond Clinton by leaps and bounds. Six figure payoffs, state funded trips for infidelity, soul mate talk while claiming to want reconciliation. Imagine if Clinton would have paid Lewinsky $10k, much less $100k, or taken a trip to fuck some woman.

But with these guys it's always the same, "I was weak, I am sorry, I have prayed, let's put this behind us....." blah, blah, blah...

Wouldn't a prostitute have been cheaper?

I guess this is the GOP idea of "family values."

Well, it's a good thing the tax rate is so low, otherwise, Ensign's rich parents couldn't have paid his whore.

Laughing, but do we know that his parents are rich? I feel this story, already opulent in luscious detail, could only be improved by Sonny asking his hard-working, assiduously saving folks to empty their 401K or mortgage their modest home to pay off his adventures.

shortstop, my broader theory of right-wing mid-life crisis is that they so resolutely didn't sow their wild oats, so to speak, that they are only now being overcome by things that normal people dealt with in their teens and 20s.

I rarely disagree with howard, but I do here. I don't sowing wild oats or not as having any bearing on the sense of entitlement these pricks display.

And I'm with shortstop -- I'm rarely shocked by these scumbags, but Ensign's parents forking over a hundred grand of -- let's face it -- blackmail, on top of 25 large in "severance" -- boggles the mind.

Isn't Ensign a bit too old to have his mommy and daddy bail him out of trouble?

Who in Dubya's Administration wasn't a retread from his daddy's administration? Remember "the grownups are in charge"?

Who could've made this up for GOPers to get attention this Summer?

Gov1: "I'll call your so-called 'affair', Senator, and raise you a dereliction-of-duty along with a steamy love letter."

Sen: "I'll call your steamy love letter and raise you 100K in blackmail."

Gov2: "You guys and your stupid affairs - I quit!"

Who in Dubya's Administration wasn't a retread from his daddy's administration?

Donald Rumsfeld.

Ensign has the best parents ever.

Let me get this straight: a gray-haired politician is still letting Mommy and Daddy get him out of Wandering Dick dilemmas? I love my kids, but sometimes, well, you just have to let them learn their own lessons. It's tough, believe me I know: those times you shadow them, as toddlers, clambering up and down stairs. Those times you quiz them on spelling tests. But the line must be drawn. No Bailouts for Office Mistresses and their Hubbies. And that's final.

How old is this guy that he still needs to have his parents mop up his messes???

We (my husband and I) set up a college fund for our son the week he was born. He knew about it and we often referred to it as "his money". Eventually, I explained to him that it was "his money" but would only be released to the college of his choice, not to him directly, to support a wife and a child. If he was old enough to spill his seed without a thought for the long term consequences, he was old enough to accept the responsibility for his acts. He was 15, 15! at the time. And I meant it, too, and he knew it.

And here comes Ensign, with children of his own, still crying "Mommy, help"??? What sort of support and or role model can he provide to his kids, if he's acting like a little kid himself?

Jeez. I couldn't even get my parents to pay my way through community college.

Can we have Henry Cisneros back in public life now?

Any estate planner will tell ya that $96k is a significant number: it suggests that the parents gifted 24k over 4 years.

So we're looking at a long-term relationship.

In dishonor of Ensign at Half Mast, please, SHHHHHH

[...] do we know that his parents are rich? -- shortstop, @17:22

Thanks to the TPM Muckraker we do; the father is referred to as a "casino mogul" who cashed in $300 mil, on retirement. So, 100K is chump change. And, I suppose, the father can be excused for raising a totally irresponsible child -- he was too busy at the casino, to be paying attention to minor details like that. But, what about the mother? Surely, *she* didn't have to spend all her time mopping the floors at the self-same casino; somehow, I don't think two incomes were a survival necessity in that family...

Waiting for the scandal of Eric Cantor of VA.

Coburn is an OB/GYN.

[In] what capasity was he acting as a physician?

Posted by: rawls

I'm still laughing. Brilliant. Just. Brilliant.
**standing O**

As the kids would say, "This thread is full of win!"

Gee, if his parents is claiming the payments were gifts, I'd like to know where to sign up.

Oooh, Coburn got some of that stuff splashed on him too.

That stuff is hard to get off.

Look forward to considerable entertainment value from Tom, the house OBGyn for C Street. Despite his medical degree, which lets him practice his love with women all over the country, to paraphrase GWB, he seems dumb as a post.

He is going to get his tang all tungled up and make Joe Biden look like Pericles by comparison.

Any way of checking whether the Hammond kids' $24,000 each went into their college accounts or Daddy's bank account?

OOPS....correction. Hampton kids, not Hammond.

That he most likely did comply with all Senate ethics rules, is itself a stunning indictment --- of the Senate.

Oh look, another GOPer who turns to mummy and daddy when he fucks up. Ladies and Gentlemen, please welcome the next Republican nominee for President of the United States.

A $96,000 "gift"? Which Ensign's parents gave their son's mistress? And which came on top of a $25,000 "severance" payment?
--------------------------

Which IIRC in turn came on top of Ensign doubling his mistress's salary -- twice, since she worked for two of his organizations -- by odd coincidence, right about the time their affair began.

There's a double entendre in this somewhere, but it grosses me out to think about it.

"what capasity was he acting as a physician?"

Isn't it obvious? John Ensign is actually a woman. And that affair he had was a lesbian affair. I think that's the bigger scandal here. She's been posing as a man for years and nobody noticed.

We are all talking about both Sens. Maybe they are closet gay men on C Street. Maybe Ensign had to get checked for a venereal disease.

As far as the parents paying $96k, it doesn't matter if they are rich - any other person would be convicted of elder abuse - grand theft type charges.

If Ensign is 51 years-old, then how old are the parents?

Hon. Sen. Coburn expects this flakey "spiritual doctor" exemption form public scrutiny to hold water, but how does he feel about whistleblower protection? how about protection for journalists?

Perhaps Senator Ensign should have remembered the maxim, "Thou shalt not stick thy rod in thy staff."

I suspect that the lesson many Republicans took away from the Clinton/Lewinsky imbroglio was to make sure that the girlfriend swallows.

There is a very simple reason why disgraced politicians should immediately resign no matter what the offense, or the talent they may possess which could benefit society: in this partisan, acrimonious, political environment in which we currently live, and at this point in time in our nation’s evolution, any elected official needs as much support from his constituency which he or she can gather. After the offense, that support base will undoubtedly diminish, and render their service less effective.

As for resignation, you might check out this.

Beautiful site!