It's official: the nonprofit watchdog Citizens for Ethics and Responsibility in Washington is the new bogeyman for conservatives.

With a small but crucial role in the Foley page scandal earlier this month, the group's visibility skyrocketed. When conservatives discovered CREW had taken $100,000 from billionaire liberal financier George Soros' Open Society Institute, they became a favorite target for anyone seeking to spin a "vast left-wing conspiracy" tale behind the GOP damage from the fiasco. Suddenly, their early possession of the Foley e-mails wasn't just evidence of good investigating; it was proof of a partisan hatchet job.

Now Rep. Curt Weldon (R-PA), whose daughter's home was raided by federal agents this morning, is charging his woes were engineered by CREW, too. The Philadelphia Inquirer reports:

At an event earlier today at Philadelphia International Airport to discuss airport noise, Weldon said the investigation is politically motivated - blaming a complaint filed by Melanie Sloan, director of Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington.

"She is the only one I know of who went to the Justice Department and asked for an investigation," Weldon said. "I know that because I have her letter."

Sloan did indeed request that the Justice Department investigate Weldon in April*. But as the group's run-in with the FBI on the Foley matter demonstrated, CREW's hardly calling the shots for FBI investigators.

Update*: Actually, that's April, 2004. So apparently it took approximately two and a half years for the liberal conspiracy to take hold.