So, to try to defend themselves in the Foley scandal, Republicans have tried to blame the media for conspiring to hold back the story until just before the election; the Democrats for doing the same; the homosexual “Velvet Mafia” for doing the same; and the victims, the pages, for doing the same. They have tried to claim that the emails were nothing, just over-friendly, then that they were consensual, and the pages were egging Foley on, and then that the Democrats had enabled Foley and sexual predators in general. They have claimed that this is a dirty trick, and that they didn’t really know anything about it, but they’re looking into whether their aides and staff did anything wrong.

They have also tried to smear the Democrats with the same brush; apparently, due to their success in blaming the purely Republican Abramoff scandal on Democrats, diffusing their own culpability by making it appear that Democrats are equally corrupt, they felt that they could do the same thing in this scandal as well. I have heard Republicans mentioning everything from the William J. Jefferson of Louisiana scandal (where he hid bribe money in his freezer), to the ever-popular joint-party page scandal of 23 years ago, as they try to present the idea that Democrats are just as bad as Republicans.

Apparently, none of that is working; people aren’t buying that Democrats were either involved in this scandal, or that past scandals make them just as bad. Republicans are falling in the polls, and the number of GOP “safe seats” in the upcoming election are dwindling, as Democrats take bigger and bigger leads.

So, perhaps in desperation, another Republican is reaching ever farther back into the scandal bag, and has actually dredged up Chappaquiddick. Defending his seat in Connecticut’s 4th District, Christopher Shays found an opportunity to defend Speaker Hastert when Ted Kennedy came to support his Democratic challenger, Diane Farrell.

“I know the speaker didn’t go over a bridge and leave a young person in the water, and then have a press conference the next day,” said Shays, R-4th District, referring to the 1969 incident in which the Massachusetts Democrat drove a car that plunged into the water and a young campaign worker died.

“Dennis Hastert didn’t kill anybody,” he added.

How long before some Republican is reaching back to Woodrow Wilson? “I know for a fact that the Speaker didn’t sign the Treaty of Versailles! Dennis Hastert didn’t start World War II, like the Democrats did!”