All of this revolved around Sen. John Ensign R-Nevada, who publicly acknowledged he had been seeing the wife of a now-former employee in his Senate office.

According to some reports, the husband allegedly tried to extort a large sum of money from the Senator.

Whenever these sort of stories surface, it always reminds me of the advice that my father gave me when he dropped me off for my first job on Capitol Hill at age 16.

"They call it the House of Representatives for a reason," my father told me as I got ready to jump out of the car.

That's because he said, there are good guys, bad guys, smart people, dumb people, crooks and more.

And my years of experience have shown that the Senate is pretty much the same as well. They all fight the same kind of personal demons that confront most people.

Except the difference is when the guy down the block hooks up with someone at work, it's not splashed all over the papers and the internet.

As for Ensign, we'll see if it's going to cause him any long term election troubles. You will read that some people had talked about him as a possible presidential candidate, but I have to say that I found that sort of hard to believe.

Blackmail definitely is a twist. That's one that usually doesn't show up.

If there's any prospective Congressional or Senate candidate out there reading this, my advice to you would be to make sure you bring your family to Washington, D.C.

There are too many nights where lawmakers aren't working, and they are instead haunting the bars and restaurants around town. I've seen them having a few over the years.

I remember helping a buddy of mine stake out a GOP Congressman in a Capitol Hill bar one time. A couple of bartenders were very helpful about his evening "work."

There was the time when I would get calls about a certain Democrat prowling around on 14th Street in DC - what was called by some "Prostitute Alley."

There are those moments when you see a member of Congress with someone who is clearly not their wife, or the time I saw two members holding hands in a bar - they weren't married to each other, either.

It's a wacky place to say the least.

That's why I trust the people more who have their spouses in DC with them. It keeps them on the straight and narrow.