Killing the flawed messenger

Talk about being snake bit. After many years of saying almost nothing quotable, U.S. Sen. John Ensign fires off an accurate rhetorical broadside -- and gets thumped for it.

The New York Times columnist Maureen Dowd couldn’t help herself after hearing Ensign weigh in during this week’s Senate scolding of Goldman Sachs.

Ensign: “I think most people in Las Vegas would take offense at having Wall Street compared to Las Vegas. Because in Las Vegas, actually people know that the odds are against them. They play anyway. On Wall Street, they manipulate the odds while you’re playing the game. And I would say that it’s actually much more dishonest.”

Dowd: “You know you’re ethically compromised when Senator John Ensign scolds you about ethics. The Nevada Republican is under investigation by the Senate Ethics Committee and the F.B.I. for chicanery surrounding an affair with a staffer. His wealthy parents paid off the mistress and her husband, who was also on Ensign’s payroll.”