The husband of John Ensign's former mistress talks [Updated]

Philandering politicians Mark Sanford and John Ensign have much in common: conservative beliefs, dashed presidential ambitions -- and now screeds they likely wish they had whispered, not written.

Sanford, the South Carolina governor, attracted worldwide ridicule with his not-clandestine-enough visit to Argentina and the purple prose he e-mailed to his mistress, Maria (she of the curvy hips and "magnificent parts").

Today, the Las Vegas Sun posted a handwritten letter purportedly from Sen, Ensign to Cynthia Hampton, his family friend turned staffer turned mistress (whom he allegedly paid $25,000 in severance when she stopped working for him):

"I used you for my own pleasure.... Plain and simple, it was wrong; it was sin," the letter says. "God never intended for us to do this."

The letter is dated February 2008. The affair lasted until August, despite attempts by Sen. Tom Coburn (R-Okla.) to persuade his Nevada colleague to end things, Coburn's spokesman said. He did not address accusations that Coburn and others encouraged Ensign to give Cynthia and her husband, Doug, enough money to pay off their more than $1-million mortgage and leave Las Vegas.

Perhaps that's why Cynthia Hampton's husband wrote his own letter to Fox News, begging for "justice, help and restitution." When Ensign got word of it, he rushed back from to Las Vegas and announced the affair.

Today, Doug Hampton, a former top Ensign aide, apparently tired of the written word. He made all sorts of accusations against Ensign -- on television.

[Updated at 7:45 p.m.: "In response to today's television interview, Sen. Ensign said Doug Hampton was consistently inaccurate in his statements," said Tory Mazzola, Sen. John Ensign's spokesman.]

-- Ashley Powers

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No second thoughts: Michael Jackson 'a child molester' -- Rep. Peter King

Maybe you remember a large ruckus the other day when Rep. Peter T. King (R-N.Y.) expressed puzzlement at least and probably more like distaste over the emotional national reactions to the sudden death of pop icon Michael Jackson at 50.

Now a day after the huge L.A. musical memorial service that drew thousands and glued millions to their TV screens around the world, in case you missed his meaning last time, King has gone a bit further.

In an interview tonight on Fox News Channel's "The O'Reilly Factor" with Bill O'Reilly, Republican King (in photo, right, above) says: "OK, he's a good singer, he's a good dancer. But why -- why is he getting all this coverage? Why has the nation stopped for Michael Jackson? That's why I said strip aside the psycho-babble. This man was a child molester."

Rep. Sheila Jackson Lee (D-Texas) announced to rousing applause at the Staples Center Jackson service Tuesday that she would be introducing a House resolution calling Jackson a "great American," an icon and someone who would be "remembered forever and ever and ever."

Lee has but one co-sponsor on the resolution, whose political fate is up to House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and thus uncertain. It's a prickly issue for her and the Democrats as much as they would like to hail the record-breaking musical accomplishments of a world-famous African American.

Debating such an issue in the summer of President Obama's eagerly sought healthcare reform would be a distraction and hand the GOP a publicity bonanza to unite its base and others over what is, in effect, nothing but a ceremonial piece of paper.

Pelosi could well decide it's not worth the effort and the resolution will be buried too. Only without celebrities and ceremony.

Even in Moscow, talking about nuclear weapons, the president was forced to address the Jackson service to break into the news cycle, calling Jackson a member of a long line of black entertainers who impacted American culture. "There are certain figures in our popular culture that just capture peoples' imagination," Obama said, "and in death they become even larger."

On Fox, meanwhile, King said he certainly had no regrets over his weekend statements. "I stand by everything I said, and there's absolutely nothing racist or racial in any of the words I used.”

He added: “I just think that people who are raising this issue are absolutely phony… it's wrong.”

King said what put him "over the edge" was that he'd spent the Fourth of July with firefighters, veterans and police and detected "such a resentment building up" over the nonstop public and media attention about the troubled singer's death.

O'Reilly pressed King about possibly waiting a week or two before saying such things. King said: "I would say an adult male who sleeps with young boys is a child molester.... If nothing else, he's molesting and abusing their psyche."

And he noted: "It was a real reflection on the culture of our country.... It can't be much more down than what Michael Jackson did with young boys, and yet we exulted that over the last 10 days in two weeks. It was wrong."

Then King added something that may strike a note with others: “I was saying what millions of Americans really felt." What do you feel?

-- Andrew Malcolm

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Photo: Fox News Channel screen grab; AFP / Getty Images.

Sarah Palin's resignation makes sense to two journalists working on the upcoming book 'Sarah from Alaska' [Updated]

Last week, as pundits and political reporters stumbled around trying to account for Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin's odd decision to resign before the end of her term, a couple of young journalists who are writing a book about her listened and shook their heads.

"They literally all admitted they have no idea why she did this, but Scott and I do," said Shushannah Walshe, 30, who is co-writing "Sarah from Alaska" with Scott Conroy, 26. It's all about the White House.

Though Walshe was coy about revealing any bombshells in the book, she and Conroy did post a juicy e-mail exchange last week between Palin and McCain's campaign strategist Steve Schmidt about Todd Palin's membership in the secession-driven Alaska Independence Party that called into question Palin's truthfulness.

(Palin urged the campaign to address the issue by making up a story about how Todd accidentally checked the wrong box when he was registering to vote. Schmidt also knocked down her claim that two reporters had asked her about Todd's involvement with the party.)

Walshe said Palin's abrupt exit was traceable to her deteriorated relationship with....

Al Gore likens global warming to Nazi threat

Al Gore is now comparing the battle against global warming to the fight against Adolf Hitler in World War II.

In a speech to students at Oxford on Tuesday, the former vice president and Nobel Peace Prize laureate  conceded that there is still work to do to convince political leaders that the threat of climate change is as urgent as that from the Nazis. The Senate is beginning debate on a cap-and-trade bill to curb emissions, predicted to be an even tougher fight than in the House, where Speaker Nancy Pelosi had to twist arms and trade votes to win a narrow victory. Gore seemed to acknowledge the difficulty of converting grassroots passion into political will.

"The level of awareness and concern among populations has not crossed the threshold where political leaders feel that they must change," he said at the Smith School World Forum on Enterprise and the Environment. "The only way politicians will act is if awareness raises to a level to make them feel that it's a necessity."

Mindful of his British audience, Gore said the fight to cut carbon dioxide emissions will require a leader with the fortitude of Winston Churchill, who steered Britain through four years of hardship, bombings and economic deprivations to victory against the Nazis.

"Winston Churchill aroused this nation in heroic fashion to save civilization in World War II," he said.
"We have everything we need except political will, but political will is a renewable resource."

Not everyone was impressed.  At Fox News, as you can see from the clip above, they're still worried about global cooling.

-- Johanna Neuman

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Michelle Obama tops hubby Barack in popularity, new poll finds, but...

And now some politically/socially revealing numbers from a plethora of polls:

While her husband's popularity takes a summertime dip, First Lady Michelle Obama's favorability ratings among Americans climb high.

According to a new online Harris Poll of 2,177 Americans, after nearly six months of an Obama administration, more than two-thirds (68%) give her a thumbs-up while less than one-third (32%) disapprove. In comparison, after nearly six years in the White House Laura Bush had a 64% approval and a 36% disapproval.

This compares with President Obama's recent ratings in a similar Harris Poll showing his popularity dipping from 59% to 54% while his disapproval rose from 41% to 46%. On the economy Michelle's partner fared even worse, with just 43% now approving of his handling of the economy and 57% disapproving.

That's understandable. Starting a White House vegetable garden and telling schoolchildren to work hard for good grades while being a poised fashion icon is somewhat less controversial than the president trying to explain a national unemployment rate soaring past the maximum his administration precisely predicted last winter, despite billions in stimulus spending.

Three-quarters of Americans (77%) think the first lady is a positive influence on her husband; 84% of women think so while 69% of men agree. But even a majority of....