If there’s one thing you can say with 100 percent certainty, it’s this: U.S. Sen. John Ensign is full of shit.

Along with water is wet, the sky is blue, Mayor Oscar Goodman loves gin and the Earth revolves around the sun, a fundamental, metaphysical truth of the universe is that Ensign lies. And this weekend gives us plenty of fodder for saying so.

(Kudos and credits, first off, to our colleague Hugh Jackson over at Las Vegas Gleaner, who has also noted the senator’s mendacity.)

Now, we’re not talking about the fact that Ensign kept silent on the ridiculous tenure of Attorney General Alberto Gonzales, speaking out only after Gonzales had already stepped down. That proves only that Ensign is a coward, not necessarily a liar.

And we’re not talking about Ensign’s candid admission that he’s a liar. And a coward, for that matter, if you consider that one definition of cowardice is to deny one’s own conscience.

No, we’re talking all new stuff here. Consider:

In a long, ponderous piece about how U.S. Sen. Harry Reid has become "…one of the staunchest senators on the anti-war left," Ensign is quoted thus:

"I’m praying for our country’s sake that things go better in Iraq. I think it helps our party, but I’m much more concerned about it for our country. I like that fact that I’m hoping for good things for our country that happen to benefit us [Republicans] politically. I’m not sure the other side can say the same" (emphasis added).

"I don’t think the other side [Democrats] is being responsible. They’re playing politics while we’re at war, and I think it’s wrong" (emphasis added).

Oh, so Democrats are hoping for bad things for our country? Maybe praying for bad things for our country? Leave aside for a moment the fact that the guy in charge of getting senators elected next year thinks the war is a good thing. How twisted does your partisan mind have to get before you get the place where you think — let again, say aloud — that your political opponents are hoping for bad things for the country?

We at Various Things & Stuff know plenty of Republicans. We even like a few of them. And we’re convinced that all of the Republicans we know want good things for the country, insofar as they consider helping the rich get richer, privatizing everything in sight and putting up giant border fences good things for the country. We can’t, however, think of a single person we know in either party that hopes bad things happen to America.

And every time a Republican says that Democrats are "playing politics" with the war, we cannot help but think that Republicans invented playing politics with war. Was it not Republican Karl Rove who advised Republican candidates to run on the war? Was it not President George W. Bush who said U.S. Sen. John Kerry would weaken America? And didn’t Vice President Dick Cheney say that electing Kerry would increase the chances the United States would be "hit again" by terrorists? And isn’t it the Republican Party that questions the patriotism of Americans who dissent from the war, even when the dissenters are veterans themselves, like U.S. Rep. John Murtha or former U.S. Sen. Max Cleland?

But wait, there’s more. Ensign got himself invited on ABC’s This Week, where his moral confusion was on full display.

Why, host George Stephanopoulos wanted to know, did the Republicans act so swiftly to get U.S. Sen. Larry Craig to quit after he pleaded guilty to disorderly conduct charges after allegedly trolling for gay sex in a Minneapolis airport men’s room, but say virtually nothing about the antics of U.S. Sen. David Vitter, R-La., whose name showed up in the phone records of a Washington D.C. escort service?

Well, Ensign said, those things happened before he got to the Senate. And, "He has not admitted to anything."

Of course, that was a lie. Vitter did admit to committing "a very serious sin in my past" for which, he said, he was "completely responsible." Stephanopoulos pointed that out, in the matter of fact way one corrects a dullard or known bullshitter. (Or maybe both.)

And, what does the timing of the crime have to do with anything? Just because Vitter’s misdeeds took place before he got to the Senate — and thus are outside the purview of the Senate Ethics Committee — is totally meaningless. A crime is a crime, no?

Let’s consider the men, side by side:

Craig: While an elected member of the U.S. Senate and maintaining the image of a family values conservative, surreptitiously sought sex in violation of the law in a Minneapolis airport men’s room from someone who turned out to be an undercover cop.

Vitter: While an elected member of the U.S. House of Representatives and maintaining the image of a family values conservative, surreptitiously sought sex in violation of the law from a Washington D.C. escort service.

Why, they seem totally alike to us. They’re both Republicans. They both sought sex. They both broke local laws in doing so.

Oh, wait: Craig was allegedly seeking sex from a man, while Vitter was allegedly seeking sex from a woman. That’s the difference! See, churchy Republicans like Ensign dislike gay sex, but don’t seem to mind straight sex. That’s why Craig will be remembered as the guy whose career was undone by a gay sex scandal and Vitter will continue to be known as "senator."

Think we’re being too harsh? Not at all: Who did Ensign pick to refer to when he needed an example of a Democratic politician caught in a sexual scandal? Did he pick former President Bill Clinton, who got a blowjob from a woman? No, Ensign reached all the way back to 1990 to remind voters that Barney Frank once dated a gay male prostitute.

Sick to your stomach yet? Well, let’s do one more for the road. Further along in the This Week interview, Ensign said this:

"It’s time to rise above politics. It’s time to start putting our country first above our party. … [Here a brief intermission where Ensign said more words.] I think the American people are really disgusted at what the Democrats have done in Washington. But it really is time to start being all this partisan bickering back and forth [sic] and sit down and work out the serious problems we have in this country."

No, that’s not a misquote. It’s Ensign saying we need to rise above politics, and man those Democrats are sure assholes, aren’t they? But still we need to work together with those bastards who I’m trying to drive from office in order to use government to boost the private sector as much as possible.

Do you think Ensign hears himself when he talks? Do you think he notices his lies, his ironies, or his odd verbal quirks?

One thing’s for sure: We most definitely hear them, and we’re going to make sure to call him on it. Because if nothing else, John Ensign is full of shit.

Or, as someone far more eloquent than we once put it: "It is impossible to calculate the moral mischief, if I may so express it, that mental lying has produced in society. When a man has so far corrupted and prostituted the chastity of his mind, as to subscribe his professional belief to things he does not believe, he has prepared himself for the commission of every other crime." (Thomas Paine, The Age of Reason.)

Sound like anybody we know?