Sorry for the site being down a bit, folks. Apparently someone only willing to identify herself as “Dede” called the cops, and the Lowville Village Police SWAT team just knocked down the door at Campaign Spot World Headquarters.

Over at Hot Air, my friend Ed Morrissey looks at today’s earlier post and quibbles a bit:

Complicating this is the fact that Dede Scozzafava didn’t make the call to the police or file the report. Her husband was the complainant, which means that if a crime was committed, it was committed by someone other than the candidate. Should candidates whose spouses commit misdemeanors be held responsible for their behavior? This seems like an unfair precedent to set, and that assumes that the Scozzafavas actually had the intent to file a false report. If they unreasonably but honestly thought that John McCormack was a threat to themselves, then that goes to a very poor sense of judgment – certainly a fair argument for an election – but not a crime.

It seems a key question is whether Ms. Scozzafava was aware of her husband’s call. She told local press after the fact that she never recommended calling the police. Unfortunately, with her campaign lying about John McCormack’s behavior, her credibility is wobbly at best.

We don’t know how precise the wording was in the call to the police. A generic “there’s somebody here and we think there may be trouble” might not constitute a “false” police report. But Scozzafava claims John McCormack never identified himself; McCormack says he did (wonder if that was caught on the audiotape as well). She said she never feared McCormack would hurt her, but was concerned by his “aggressiveness.”

What’s more, there’s nothing to indicate that once the police arrived, Scozzafava did anything to mitigate the police officer’s perception that a crime had occurred or a crime seemed likely to occur. The cops did question McCormack; at any point did Scozzafava try to shed light on what was really happening? Or did she stand by as the police questioned a reporter for doing his job?

Every statement from Scozzafava is hindered by the fact that after the police arrived, the campaign continued to put out public statements that flat-out lied. And then when they were caught, they just erased the offending sentences with no retractions.

I have a hard time giving the benefit of the doubt to candidates who permit their campaigns to lie about those who cover them.