SIGN IN to access the Harper’s archive
ALERT: Usernames and passwords from the old Harpers.org will no longer work. To create a new password and add or verify your email address, please sign in to customer care and select Email/Password Information. (To learn about the change, please read our FAQ.)
Not a subscriber? Subscribe today!
Create a login here. Forgot password? Forgot email? More help here.
Ensign is considered a leading voice among social conservatives in the G.O.P. In 1998, as a House member running against Reid, he called on President Bill Clinton to resign after revelations about his affair with a White House intern. “He sent taxpayer-paid staff out to lie for him, and that is a misuse of office,” Ensign said, adding that the president had “no credibility left.”
In September 2007, Ensign called then-Sen. Larry E. Craig (R-Idaho) “embarrassing” after Craig was arrested in an airport men’s restroom and pleaded guilty to disorderly conduct in a sex sting. Ensign played the leading role in an unsuccessful effort to force Craig into resigning from the Senate immediately.
Ensign’s affair began a few months after he called for his colleague to resign, according to a timeline provided by his office.
By the way, public records show that Cindy Hampton, Ensign’s girlfriend, got paid about $2,000 by the senator’s campaign in 2008–$1,000 for consulting, $1,041.95 for accounting, and $41.95 for “payment of utilities” (given the repetition of the $41.95 figure, you have to wonder if she didn’t double-bill on utilities. That said, this is obviously the least of Ensign’s problems). The nature of the consulting was not disclosed. Her husband, Douglas Hampton, was paid well while the senator slept with his wife–as an administrative assistant to Ensign, he received $144,146.71 for his work during 2007 and 2008.
More from Ken Silverstein:
Commentary — July 25, 2012, 2:20 pm
Washington Babylon — September 29, 2010, 11:37 am


Years of consideration preceding the inclusion of the word “phat” in Random House’s 1996 Compact Unabridged Dictionary:

Scientists created crash helmets that stink when cracked and fruit flies to whom blue light smells delicious.

In Belize, a construction company bulldozed a 2,300-year-old Mayan temple to make road fill.
“This is the heart of the magic factory, the place where medicine is infused with the miracles of science, and I’ve come to see how it’s done.”