The customs and culture of country club conservatives

When John Ensign went crying to his parents to hush the Hamptons with $96,000 that wouldn't show up on any FEC or Senate disclosure reports, they "decided to make the gifts out of concern for the well-being of long-time family friends during a difficult time," according to Ensign's lawyer. "The gifts are consistent with a pattern of generosity by the Ensign family to the Hamptons and others."

"Pattern of generosity?" One wonders how many "gifts" and bonuses Lord and Lady Ensign were forced to pay the household domestic help when Nevada's future junior senator was growing up.

Even more startling than the hollow explanation of the "gifts" is the assumption, intrinsic in the attorney's statement, that forking over $96,000 as an act of "generosity" to a family with a household income that is already three or four times the Clark County median (Doug Hampton alone was paid a total of $245,000 by Ensign over 17 months) might look like anything other than the wretched excess of self-absorbed fancy people with more money than sense.

Cavalierly getting mummy dear and father sir to shovel out tens of thousands of dollars so junior can have some sexytime with the help? That's just how the better sorts roll.

Besides, there is no law that says filthy rich parents can't ladle money to the family of their flagrantly hypocritical son's mistress. Legally, it's all on the up and up, or so says Ensign's lawyer.

Assuming for the sake of argument that's true, it rather misses the point.

How securely rooted on the advantageous side of wealth polarization must one be to not see how vulgar such cute little off-the-books cash and prizes are in the eyes of those who typically do not give or receive $96,000 "gifts," i.e., pretty much everyone else? 

Or perhaps put another way, What degree of detachment, nurtured through privilege, must John Ensign be operating under that he thinks it is appropriate for him to represent the people of Nevada in the United State Senate?

Ensign suffers from precisely that condition that he and other conservatives, with an assist from a pliant media, have so successfully if inaccurately assigned to Democrats and progressives over the years: He's out of the mainstream. Way, way out.

Ensign is also -- to use another term of derision commonly employed in right wing talking points -- an elitist. (Actually, given that Ensign was sleeping with an employee who is his wife's best friend and his good friend's wife and all the rest, this is one of those occasions when it is in fact accurate and not hyperbole at all to call someone an elitist pig).

Perhaps Ensign's parents should quit bailing him out of his troubles. Break the cycle of dependency, as it were. John Ensign doesn't need a hand out, he needs a hand up. After all, if his parents keep paying for his sex, he'll never learn to pay for it himself. Etc.

Meantime, he is, sigh, a senator.

Ensign loves to get up on his hind legs and spew conservative pablum such as, for instance, how patriotic it is to maintain the nation's failed "market based" health care delivery system. At no time as an adult has he himself ever struggled to come up with money to pay a health care bill, or any other bill for that matter.

Over the years, Ensign has been incapable of muttering two sentences without one of them leveling a complaint about high taxes on hard-working Americans -- a demographic group that he has actually seen with his own eyes out of the darkly tinted window of his chauffeur-driven Escalade.

Ensign's hard right positions are based entirely on facile conservative rhetoric. "Struggling to make ends meet" are just words to him. He has no grasp of daily reality as experienced by 99.999 percent of his constituents. That in itself may not be all that rare among U.S. senators, but in Ensign's case his profound ignorance is made more pernicious by his relentless resort to twisted right wing rationalizations for putting average people at heightened risk, ripping them off or screwing them over, preferably while benefiting a transnational conglomerate if possible.

That too, is not all that rare among U.S. senators. But Ensign adds a particularly unique insult to the injury by virtue of being not only a callous, arrogant and ideologically obsessed right wing ass, but a spoiled little trust fund brat who, thanks to over-indulgent, checkbook-at-the-ready parents, has routinely been sheltered from consequences and was never forced to grow up. Little wonder his judgment is atrocious.

Ensign needs help -- and not the spurious pseudo-support of fellow fundamentalist Christian men who have perverted their faith to the point that they pretend any and all behavior is excusable if committed by someone of whom their god sufficiently approves. Ensign needs real help, clinical help (it's tempting to suggest that he and Jim Gibbons might get a package deal, but Ensign obviously doesn't need the discount).

Ensign's constituents inhabit a place that is utterly alien to the cloistered, privileged and coddled senator -- reality. And if he's incapable of even recognizing the world his constituents live in, he can't possibly represent them.

Comments

[Rich]

These are the same type of people who inhabit the Valley Swim Club in Philadelphia. They booted sixty kids from the pool because they were black. These 'Christians' need serious help.

http://www.colorofchange.org/swim/?id=1942-116460

[Goldy]

Dear Goldy:

We heard you got in trouble with your "Mr. Winky." We are sorry to hear about that. We have enclosed a coupon for $5 off the Fajita Platter at the local Appleby's. Consider it a gift and hopefully, it can get you out of any trouble you may have gotten yourself into.

Love,

Mom and Dad

P.S. Add $1 for shrimp.
Are you coming to dinner on Sunday? We are playing Scrabble after 60 Minutes!

[CollegeStudent]

"Break the cycle of dependency, as it were. John Ensign doesn't need a hand out, he needs a hand up. " Classic

Goldy- it sounds like you have really nice family who make sure you are eating good in the nieghborhood.

[Tailspinterry]

In response to a petition from 3000 of his constituents who want health care for everyone, not just the elites like him, Ensign's spokesperson rattled off the same tired, already discredited talking points. Big government, bureaucrats between doctor and patient, blah, blah. Oh, we want to hear from both sides.
[http://www.lasvegassun.com/news/2009/jul/09/grassroots-group-petitions-ensign-public-health-ca/]
Thanks to Torey Van Oot, the Sun reporter who braved triple digit heat to get the story.

[Tailspinterry]

We braved triple digit heat yesterday to deliver a petition in support of the public option to Sen. Ensign's office. About 3000 of his constituents respectfully requested the senator to think of someone besides himself. Navada has at least 300k uninsured adults, depending on how you define uninsured. Many more have only catastrophic insurance.
The irony is that with a pandemic H2N1 flu outbreak pending this fall, he and his elitist parents are vulnerable to infection from uninsured 20-something clerks and gofers who can't afford a doctor visit when they develop mild early symptoms. And with decimated state funding--Ensign opposed the stimulus and our executive branch is incompetent--our public health department may not be up to distributing the vaccine.
Do they want to live in a Blade Runner type society where the elites fortress themselves apart from common folk? Except when they want sex?

[megan]

Please don't call John Ensign an elitist pig. That is an insult to pigs & I happen to like pigs.

[Nevada Ned]

I understand the desire of parents to help out their kids. Even when the kid screws up. ESPECIALLY when the kid screws up. (I could give examples, but I won't.) But surely by the time the "child" is half a century old (!!) he ought to be treated as an adult. Because he is. Chronologically, anyway.

[Dougcoe]

Beware of fundamentalists bearing gifts.

[Wingate100]

Well, the next shoe on Ensign will drop when details of his 2002 affair come out. It is well known in political circles in DC that he messed around with his former press secretary. The wife found out and Ensign went MIA for a few weeks. I am not making this up this up. Just look at the facts.

[evil is evil]

Ensign and Reid. Any decent voter in Nevada should check out the correct method of harikari to atone for these two.

Voting them out is just not enough.

[EdnaCameltoe]

I would blow him esp for 96K!

[HalleIan]

Hugh-

GREAT POST. Please write one about Ensign and The Family,that C Street wierd group where he lives. All the Congressmen there should move out or the religious exemption there should be repealed.

[VegasTeaRoom]

Dear Hallelan,
If RICO worked against Catholic pedophiles, it can work against the money laundering of The Fellowship.

[kickboxermomma]

96K + 25k and still the beat went on. Hmm some have alluded to swapping gone out of hand. I just wonder cuz the Christmas story is just soo strange. I mean come on how long does it take to fix a broken door. I had mine replaced in a few hours. Ensign as titillating as all this is GET OUT move on.

[Josh]

Hey Wingate,
Are you suggesting that his rich Daddy paid off Traci Scott as well back in 2002? I doubt it. It is true that Traci left her job in 2002, but she went to go work for Mike Slanker on the Porter campaign.

[Nevada_Ned]

I dunno if this is an omen or not, but Ensign is becoming the butt of a helluva lotta jokes. For example, at the Huff Post, look here

ECONOMY MAY FORCE POLITICIANS TO HAVE SEX WITH THEIR OWN WIVES!

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/john-marshall/economy-may-force-politic_b_229228.html

and here

NEW UNEMPLOYMENT NUMBERS INCLUDE LAYOFFS OF 50,000 REPUBLICAN MISTRESSES

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/andy-borowitz/new-downbeat-unemployment_b_229289.html

[Michael Green]

A reporter called me for historical background. I referred him to my father. Isn't that what we are supposed to do?

[A dose of reality]

Kicky makes an excellent point - the whole story about how the affair started is not credible. If it is WAS 'wife swapping' - and it is able to be brought out - then he is toast. If they did this while their kids were in the house, it is off the charts.

[VegasTeaRoom]

Group Sex!
Group Sex!
Group Sex!

(And I thought that happened only in the handicapped stalls.)

[Rich]

VTR...true if you're a Larry Craig type Republican. Family values you know.