Before Michael Jackson died, and before Mark Sanford disappeared to Argentina, a Senator named John Ensign admitted to an affair with a former staffer, who was married to another former staffer. And now we have his break-up letter to her.

Or, rather, the Las Vegas Sun has it. And it is much more business-like, and much less poetic, than the emails of Governor Sanford.

So. Doug Hampton, the guy who is married to the woman Ensign was sleeping with, "spoke publicly" about the affair today. And apparently Tom Coburn "and others" urged Ensign to not only stop this affair-ing, but also to pay off the Hamptons' sub-prime mortgage, so that they could move to Colorado. That is probably a really bad suggestion from Coburn there, to tell a Senator to pay off a mistress and her husband!

Hampton and Ensign were bonded by their conservative evangelical faith. Hampton said he reached out to intermediaries involved in a Christian fellowship home in Washington, D.C., where Ensign and several other powerful Washington figures live.

The group, including Coburn, a well-known conservative, confronted Ensign and suggested that the Hamptons needed to be given financial assistance — in the millions of dollars — to pay off their $1 million-plus mortgage and move them to a new life away from Ensign.

During the confrontation, Ensign agreed to write a letter to Cynthia Hampton expressing remorse, Hampton said.

The letter, which was authenticated by Ralston's executive producer Dana Gentry, is filled with contrition: "I was completely self-centered and only thinking of myself. I used you for my own pleasure not letting thoughts of you, Doug, Brandon, Blake or Brittany come into my mind," he wrote, referring to the Hampton children.

But after sending the letter, which bears the date "Feb. 2008," Hampton said Ensign quickly disavowed it in a conversation with Cynthia Hampton and continued to pursue her.

Hampton said that on that same February weekend, Ensign told him, "I'm in love with your wife."

Christ. Why are the sex scandals this year so sad and pathetic? We can't wait to hear what Michael Wolff has to say about this though!