Reply #9: That doesn't make sense. The blackmailer wanted him not to talk.

[Bucky]

It could be that Ensign is just getting out in front of ball in order to 1) kill the blackmail scheme (this is known in the Philandering Husband League as "pulling an Alexander Hamilton") and possibly to 2) keep other infidelities (presumedly the ones that if he had his life to live over again, he would not take back) from getting into the public discussion. It's a pretty smart strategy, or it would be if he hadn't been such a hypocrite during both Clinton and Larry Craig's celebrated foibles.