ENOUGH IS ENOUGH

All right, let me see if I have this straight. Senator John Ensign's staffer and her husband have their house broken into by thieves. The house is so messed up that they and their children move in with the Ensigns, who live in a neighborhood nearby. While they are all living together with the Ensigns and their children, Ensign starts shtupping the staffer. This causes some difficulties, which lead to the staffer severing her connection with the Senator's staff. Senator Tom Coburn, who is both a doctor and a lay minister, counsels Senator Ensign, and then, when questioned, says that as both a doctor and a minister he claims the privilege of keeping what he and Senator Ensign talked about private, except that Senator Coburn's office puts out a press release full of details about which the Senator has claimed privilege. Meanwhile, Senator Ensign's rich father and mother make eight gifts of $12,000 each to the staffer, her husband, and the two children, for a total of $96,000 totally free of all tax consequences [anyone can give anyone $12,000 a year or less with no tax consequences], ostensibly to tide them over the difficult time they are having.



Meanwhile, Senator Larry Craig is emplying a wide stance in the pubic bathrooms in an airport, Senator David Vitter is frequenting a DC madam, Governor Mark Sanford is explaining that though he crossed the sexual line with his Brazilian bombshell, he did not cross the sexual line with a number of other women, though he did cross a line nevertheless. And Governor Sarah Palin ups and quits her governorship, in order to show that she is no quitter, and then, having decided that her first attempt at explanation left something to be desired, gives a series of hastily arranged interviews with representatives of the hated Mainstream Media, wearing waders even though she gives no evidence of being actually engaged in fishing.

When I was young, the Republican Party was the party of grownups. Dull, unimaginative, out of touch with whatever happened to be the popular culture of the day, but manifestly grownups. What is going on? The Democratic Party is now the party of Barack Obama and Joe Biden, as sober and serious a pair of grownups as you could find.

What happened?