Yesterday I wrote how reports are showing Tom Coburn counselling John Ensign to end his affair and hand over some hush money to his mistress Cindy Hampton. This story is developing quickly, though, so quickly that one expects everything to fall apart, and soon, for Senator John Ensign. We’ve got what appears to be payoffs ($96,000) in some sort of equavalence to small, unmarked bills, from Ensign’s parents. And though those payments seem seem legal, strictly speaking, there’s also a hint that a man was fired, former Ensign friend Doug Hampton, because he was upset at Ensign screwing his wife. That sounds like litigation in the works, and that’s reflected in the Las Vegas Sun article:

In the interview, Hampton’s language indicated that a lawsuit is forthcoming.

“You’ll see all of this through this discovery,” he said at one point, using a word — discovery — often used to describe the deposition procedure of a lawsuit, which would involve under-oath testimony.

Hampton indicated that he considers his wife, who has not spoken about the matter publicly, a victim of coercion while she was working for Ensign.

Ensign “uses that as leverage to contact Cindy. She’s trying to get away from John, but he’ll leave messages like, ‘It is about your job; it is a work issue I need to talk about,’ ” he said.

The Republicans will not want a big lawsuit, and now it is past time to put up enough hush money to quash this thing. With the GOP performing so poorly with women, and also with their so-called family values mantle as moth-eaten as it is, one would think the GOP would act quickly, cut Ensign from the herd, and try to move on as soon as possible. Inexplicably that isn’t happening.

Sure, Tom Coburn got sucked into this and now his office is putting out press releases with denials and with criticism for Senator Ensign. But that’s a small potatoes response for a party that used to go into overdrive for a mere blow job. This Republican Senator put two marriages in peril, which is two more than all the gay marriages in this country have put into jeopardy. But the worst happened last night. Keith Olbermann borrowed from Ben Smith of Politico in discussing Ensign’s parents $96,000 gift tot he Hamptons. That gift was reportedly “consistent with a pattern of generosity,” a phrase Smith notes could enter the lexicon as “wide stance” did. I’m telling you, with “Pullin’ a Palin” entering the Urban dictionary yesterday, the GOP doesn’t need any more clever linguistic help.