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Opinion: After the affair -- woes of Nevada’s John Ensign continue

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It was early summer when Sen. John Ensign (R-Nev.) admitted to an extramarital affair in a clipped statement intended to limit the damage to a few news cycles.

Considering the story broke about the same time as South Carolina Gov. Mark Sanford’s admission of infidelity -- which was a little more Harlequin romance and therefore more interesting -- Ensign seemed destined to fade from the headlines. Instead, the saga has dragged on so long that we suspect we’ll be talking about Johnny Casino come Christmas.

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This week, Las Vegas TV reporter and columnist George Knapp reported that ABC’s “Nightline” is slated to air an interview with the most aggrieved of political spouses: Doug Hampton. The Ticket’s calls to ABC News were not immediately returned.

Hampton was essentially Ensign’s co-chief of staff until his wife, Cynthia Hampton, also an Ensign aide, became the senator’s mistress. (For a taste of Hampton’s substantial vitriol, take a look at this interview with local commentator Jon Ralston.) “This is extra bad news for Ensign since ‘Nightline’ has the freedom to devote much more airtime to a story than, say, an evening newscast,” Knapp wrote.

In other Ensign news, Twitter has silenced an ongoing salty parody of him by local scribe Andrew Kiraly. He’s vowed to find a way to revive it, which would likely not bode well for the senator. So much for this affair -- and mockery of it -- quietly dying.

-- Ashley Powers

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