What a relief! Senator John Ensign's colleagues accepted his apology. Indeed, according to the Washington Post, the Nevadan was applauded and cheered by his fellow GOPs after asking their pardon for bonking a married staffer. The Post didn't say why the broken Promise Keeper merited not just forgiveness but actual acclaim, but those of us who follow the Republican Party with keen fascination can make an educated guess or two.
For one thing, the bonkee in question is female. As the minority party, representing an-ever diminishing constituency, the GOP is intent on regaining power any way it can. The Republicans have therefore adopted procreation as a party platform, reasoning that the fruits of their loins will be chips off the old block and themselves future Republicans. The more the current generation screws, the greater the number of next generation Republicans. Hence too their aversion to birth control, abortion, and homosexuality, all of which get in the way of Republican reproduction.
Furthermore Republicans tend in the main to be obese old men. For such, evidence of residual virility, such as the capacity to screw a staff member, is eminently cheer-worthy. For the rest of us perhaps, the idea of doughy wrinklies like the concupiscent Rush Limbaugh or the much-married Newt Gingrich having sex is distasteful, if not downright nightmarish. Republicans on the other hand have no problem with the image of Limbaugh's bared man-boobs and mountainous pasty buttocks playing the two-backed beast (or given Limbaugh's generous lines, three-backed). For them it's merely a sign that conservative vital signs haven't flat-lined, that conservatism itself isn't the limp force it appears to be.
Finally Ensign's colleagues cheered him because he manned-up and accepted responsibility for his actions. Of course some might find less than manly the fact that he did so under duress, apparently under threat from the cuckolded husband. And that according to the Post, Ensign sneaked in and out of the meeting by back-stairs and side-entrances in order to evade unwelcome attention from the press. But no Republican would think that way. Telling the truth only when you have to while creeping and skulking about is the very definition of manhood for the GOP.