Betsy Devine: Funny ha-ha and/or funny peculiar

One more phony excuse from the GOP got tossed out of court last week–and the civil case against NH phone-jamming lives on! Here’s the story from this week’s Manchester Union Leader: Hillsborough County Superior Court Judge Philip Mangones has dismissed a Republican Party counter-claim against the Democrats’ civil suit over the 2002 phone-jamming scandal. The GOP action contended the Democratic suit was part of a nationwide effort by the party to use the courts as part of an election strategy to manipulate the court system and media for political gain. Mangones didn’t buy it.

---

Meanwhile, in more recent news, Republican spinners are floating the same exact claim about the recent Congressman Foley scandal–that the real sinners here are Democrats who seek political advantage by pointing out the latest GOP disgrace.

Who buys such a story? Not even the conservative Union Leader:

With L’affair Foley threatening to ruin his plans for another two years in power, U.S. House Speaker Dennis Hastert … blamed the scandal on the Democrats.

“(T)he Democrats have — in my view — have put this thing forward to try to block us from telling the story. They’re trying to put us on defense.”

At this point, there is not one shred of evidence to back up that claim. Yet even if the release of Foley’s e-mails and Internet chats were the fruit of a partisan plot, that does not change the facts of what happened, or rather what did not happen, before their release.

…Hastert’s obsession with maintaining power has corrupted his judgment and he can no longer be trusted to put the interests of the country above the interests of his party. Republicans must insist that he resign.

The same should be said of the Republican stonewallers still working hard, four years later, to cover up the truth behind the 2002 NH phone-jamming scandal.

---