The Weekly Standard weighs in

Joseph Bottum, a South Dakota native and a Weekly Standard writer, has a piece today headlined "Suing Your Way to Defeat." Excerpt:

Daschle has seriously misunderstood the power of the alternative media, especially radio and the Internet, to get news about this kind of thing out to the voting public. The South Dakota bloggers have been relentless: Jon Lauck live blogged the hearing (and the judge whined about it in open court: is that cool, or what?) Jason Van Beek kept the stream coming through the night, as did Steve Sibson, Ryne McClaren, and others.

The kind of political trick that Daschle's lawyers tried works only if it remains an unverified rumor through Election Day, and things don't remain rumors anymore. The new electronic world welcomes you, Senator Daschle--and it says goodbye to you, as well. The whole state now knows about the lawsuit, and your claims of vicious eye-rolling, and how you've turned into some weird guy at a cocktail party doing his chicken imitations.

Besides, I'm sorry to report, you lost the case. Even your buddy Piersol was too embarrassed to give you more than an order banning the writing down of license-plate numbers. I've been pessimistic about John Thune's chance all year and wrote here in THE WEEKLY STANDARD that the race was still Daschle's to lose. I think he just has.