A show of hands: Are there any Crap Christian moralizers out there who aren't having affairs or doing other dastardly deeds?

When Chip Pickering announced in August 2007 that he wouldn't run for reelection to Congress (actually, he wound up quitting without even serving out his term), he said he wanted to spend more time with his wife Leisha and their five sons, ages 8-17. How'd that work out, Chip?

by Ken

So now it's former Mississippi Congressman Chip Pickering, the latest addition to the parade of C Street sleazebags, along with Nevada Sen. John Ensign and South Carolina Gov. Mark Sanford. The estranged Mrs. Pickering has filed an alienation of affection suit against the Chipster's mistress. And yes, you guessed it, our Chip is another C Streeter -- and indeed, in his new career as (what else?) a lobbyist, part of a phalanx of Family members working a C Street-K Street axis.

So Rachel Maddow had to drag poor Jeff Sharlet away from his intended vacation yet again last night, for another session on the fundamentalist cult he infiltrated, and eventually wrote a book about it, The Family. (Jeff, by the way, while acknowledging that the C Street Family house has the atmosphere of "a fundamentalist frat house," thinks all the philandering is less important than the pipelines to power being established by the morality-be-damned C Street fundies, and that there are still some really explosive stories waiting to explode.)



Isn't there some point at which we have to wonder about what drives a person to enter religious or political service to bully helpless fellow citizens into adhering into moral precepts they don't even think about practicing in their own lives? "Hypocrisy" doesn't begin to cover it. Surely we're talking about some recognized pathology?


MEANWHILE, THINGS AREN'T LOOKING
SO ENCOURAGING FOR SENATOR ENSIGN

Margaret Carlson reported today on The Daily Beast that Senate Republicans, who welcomed Sen. John "My Mommy and Daddy Say You Should Oghtta Stop Being Mean to Me" Ensign back so enthusiastically when he made his triumphant return following his admission that he had, er, strayed, have become a lot less sympathetic in the face of the barrage of subsequent revelations, with no end in sight. Those GOP senators, concerned about holding the Nevada Senate seat currently occupied by Senator Ensign, and they want him to help by doing something -- namely, quit.

GOP Plots Ensign's Ouster

Republican Sen. John Ensign did what any red-blooded American would do upon returning to the floor of the Senate after the revelation that his parents paid off his mistress and her family. He gave a speech about a bill to help families of our wonderful veterans and brought his young son along as a human shield.

But compared to the first time Ensign showed up on the Hill after news broke that he'd had an affair with the spouse of his top aide, the reception was much less fulsome. The earlier attitude was the whole thing would blow over. Members of the Club are never eager to discipline another member of the Club unless the conduct in question is clearly outside the bounds of accepted sexual deviance. Calls for Sen. Larry Craig to quit were immediate and loud.

Ensign, said a colleague, should “leave now so the Republican governor can appoint someone new who has time to get a leg up on holding the seat for the GOP.”

At first, Ensign's case seemed closer to that of Louisiana Republican Sen. David Vitter, who apologized, wife at his side, for his brush with the "D.C. Madam" Deborah Jeane Palfrey and held on—although he could have a rough reelection race in 2010. Now Ensign’s standing is shakier. On the heels of his cameo at the Capitol on Tuesday, Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, asked whether Ensign should stay and run for reelection, replied brusquely "Sen. Ensign will have to speak to those issues himself" before walking away from reporters. . . .

Even the strategy of muscling Ensign out of the Senate is far from surefire, as Margaret notes:

While cool heads in the GOP would like Ensign to disappear, the part of the plan where the Republican governor appoints a successor is complicated by the fact that Nevada’s current governor is a media circus all his own. Just last week, a court ruled that the lawsuit filed by a cocktail waitress against [DWT fave] Gov. Jim Gibbons for hitting her outside a Las Vegas nightclub could go forward. Gibbons' wife is suing him for a divorce that gets nastier by the day.

Records came out recently showing that Gibbons had texted a woman not his wife 800 times over six weeks on a state cellphone. He arrives at his office mid-morning, if at all, calls meetings he doesn't show up for, and is ignoring his state's economic freefall now that tourism and housing have cratered.

Meanwhile, the Republican lieutenant governor, Brian Krolicki, is facing prosecution on felony charges that he mishandled a multibillion-dollar college-savings program when he was state treasurer. Unsurprisingly, the nonpartisan National Journal just ranked Nevada the second most dysfunctional state in the country after New York, where all state business has ground to a halt because the legislature locked itself out of the Capitol.

As they say, you can't make this stuff up.


UPDATE: Are ALL Republicans Prostitutes?

It would be wrong for Americans to just think of ugly old white men paying younger women (or boys) for sex when the topic of Republican whores comes up. Sure, the GOP has an astounding record of sexual hypocrisy to live down, but an even more serious problem is that they're all willing to sell themselves to the highest bidder, invariably Big Business. Today Politico broke the latest Republican pay-to-play scandal:

The American Conservative Union asked FedEx for a check for $2 million to $3 million in return for the group’s support in a bitter legislative dispute, then the group’s chairman flipped and sided with UPS after FedEx refused to pay.

For the $2 million plus, ACU offered a range of services that included: “Producing op-eds and articles written by ACU’s Chairman David Keene and/or other members of the ACU’s board of directors.

Republican Party publicists Michelle Malkin and Erick Erickson are weeping. -- Howie

#