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This is SOP. Just at recent California elections.

1. Barbara Boxer dumped a story in the final days of the 1992 election that Bruce Hershenson visited a strip club. Boxer won and became Senator.

2. Barbara Boxer dumped a story in the final days of the 1998 election that Matt Fong had contributed money to an anti-gay group. Fong was winning but ended up losing the election.

3. Gray Davis supporters orchestrated a bogus lawsuit against the company of challenger Bill Simon. The trial was fast-tracked to reach a guilty verdict before the election. Simon lost the election, but the conviction was overturned on appeal a few months later.

4. Arnold Schwarzenegger was attacked by the LA Times during the 2003 recall election about groping women on movie sets. He still won.

-PJ

"Gray Davis supporters orchestrated a bogus lawsuit against the company of challenger Bill Simon. The trial was fast-tracked to reach a guilty verdict before the election. Simon lost the election, but the conviction was overturned on appeal a few months later."

You refer to the Hindelang affair.

The Simon campaign had only itself to blame for that one. I won't get into the details here, but through some verifiable contacts I personally informed the Simon campaign of the Hindelang problem prior to the primaries, with seventeen pages of documentation from lexis-nexis and other sources. They ignored it and my increasingly concerned warnings as Davis' flying monkeys meticulously put their trap into place. They could not claim surprise when the trap finally sprang.

Simon was a rookie and in way over his head. Unfortunately that's the case with most Republicans-- we just can't comprehend the sheer evil minds of the 'Rats. Today we see it in every defeatist bleating of the Kossacks and DUmmies, who would love to see America crushed in the War on Terror if it means "their team" takes power again. For this they pray, insofar as they pray for anything.

Looking back, I now realize that very early on I should have posted the Hindelang stuff (at least the publicly-sourced items) here and fed them to the press. It would have pissed the hell out of my friends in the campaign, but it would have taken the sting out of the accusations and removed the element of artful timing. I've learned, and the Pajamas Brigade is today a force to be reckoned with, so next time...

This Foley thing is more legitimate but the timing stinks on ice. Someone sat on those emails and instant messages so as to create a perfect October Surprise that, through well-honed and misleading phrasing and reporting, indicts an entire Party. I believe Hastert when he says he was unaware of the X-rated communications and knew only of a few awkwardly over-familiar emails, but it doesn't matter, as the reportage has blurred the timelines and gives him no wiggle room. Hindsight being 20:20, with a crucial election coming up, at the first hint of impropriety, Hastert should have quietly mounted an investigation of his own to be absolutely sure that the closet was empty of skeletons (and Foley, for that matter). Dumb that he didn't. Sad that he didn't.