I've said many times that whenever a top GOP official or spokesman accuses Democrats of doing something awful, you know immediately that it's the Republicans doing that awful thing - whatever it is - and trying to deflect the blame. I noted this in the previous post about accusing Democrats of politicizing Terry Schiavo's death.

WASHINGTON (CNN) -- Democrats in the House are blocking the ethics committee from organizing so they can protect several fellow party members from ethics investigations, Speaker Dennis Hastert said Wednesday.

"We know there are four or five cases out there dealing with top-level Democrats," Hastert told the conservative Sean Hannity radio program.

"There's a reason that they don't want to go to the ethics process and as long as they can keep someone dangling out there like they have with Tom DeLay, they take great glee in that," the Illinois Republican said.

To believe this, you must also believe that the GOP leadership knows of serious ethics charges against "four or five" of the "top-level Democrats" and, out of collegiality and a sense of duty to the country, has refused to publicize them. This being the same party of "Swift Boat Veterans for Truth" and "Lesbian Hillary killed Vince Foster," mind you. The only charges the GOP can leak have either already been taken care of (Pelosi operating two PACs) or are so trivial compared to Tom DeLay that any sane person would laugh at the comparison.

It's rapidly becoming a natural law: you know what the GOP is doing by what it accuses its enemies of doing.