The earnest, dogmatic young man thinking of challenging Rep. Jim Bilbray in the heavily Democratic Las Vegas district seemed naive and idealistic. Ensign had no chance to win, and didn't seem to know he would never be able to raise the money or break through in the Democratic fortress that was — and is — Congressional District One.

How wrong I was: Ensign, as part of the Republican Revolution, defeated Bilbray by 1,436 votes. And 14 years later, a few days after Ensign made his first high-profile Sunday talk show appearance, he seems to have lost none of the dogmatism, yet he now clearly has become a political businessman.

As head of the National Republican Senatorial Committee, the once apolitical outsider, a casino general manager and veterinarian, has become a political animal who understands that his telegenic presence sells the GOP and who reconciles that politics and policy are not mutually exclusive. And as the helmsman of a GOP ship that is leaking badly and may sink next year, he is not averse to throwing a man overboard to reduce the on-board baggage. I refer, of course, to Idaho Sen. Larry Craig, who announced Saturday he was resigning his seat Sept. 30.

"One of the things I'm proudest about our leadership is the swift action, not only calling for an immediate Senate investigation, ethics investigation, removing him from his committees, but also sending the signal to him that it was probably best that he resign," Ensign said in an appearance on ABC's "This Week with George Stephanopoulos." "It was best for himself, best for his family, and best for the institution of the Senate."

Who was that man who seemed to be emulating another Nevada Republican senator, Paul Laxalt, when he advised Philippines strongman Ferdinand Marcos in 1985 that it was time to go? "Cut and cut cleanly," Laxalt had famously told Marcos, and you could imagine Ensign having that same conversation with Craig.

There is a benign, even praiseworthy view of this new John Ensign — a maturation wrought by almost a decade and a half in public life, where ambition fused with pragmatism leaves behind idealism and naiveté. But there also is a more cynical, even Dorian Gray-like view of Ensign now — a symbol of the GOP intolerance on social issues that has created the morally intolerant atmosphere that keeps gays closeted, whether they be U.S. senators or more invisible, tortured souls.

The new John Ensign is capable of hypocrisy, too, parsing the difference between Craig's predicament and that of Louisiana's David Vitter. Yes, Craig pleaded guilty, but Ensign's hairsplitting on "This Week" that Vitter did what he did while a House member and not a senator was painfully disingenuous.

Does anyone think if Vitter was discovered to have been having gay sex as a congressman that Ensign would be so tolerant? And if you think Ensign didn't know that Louisiana has a Democratic governor who would appoint a Democrat while Idaho's chief executive is a Republican, you don't know the metamorphosis of John Ensign.

This is a business now, Ensign realizes. Or as he put it in a recent interview: "When we first came to office, we wanted to burn down Washington," he said of the Year of the Contract with America. "There are times in history to do certain things. We had that window and it was the right way to be. But mostly you can't. You have to make changes incrementally."

Ensign now sees the utility in what once would have been anathema — using politics to further policy goals, being ruthless (as he was with Craig) for the party's sake. Yes, it's a business, and one Ensign seems to have become quite adept at as the would-be capital arsonist has become a consummate D.C. insider.