But as the Autodefensas's influence increases, so, too, do questions about its conduct and motives.
For the assassins' conduct and motives we must rely on accounts compiled more than a century later by the imperial historians Suetonius, Plutarch and Appian.
Rule XIX, Paragraphs 2 and 3 — one of the original rules drawn from Thomas Jefferson's "Manual of Parliamentary Practice" — bars senators from imputing unworthy conduct or motives to another senator, and from insulting any senator's state.
But Mr Woolas's solicitor, Gerald Shamash, said: "Those who stand for election and participate in the democratic process must be prepared to have their political conduct and motives subjected to searching scrutiny and inquiry," he said.
On the other hand, the writer has abstained, in the only sentences in which it was necessary to speak of opponents, from saying a single word more of their conduct or motives than strict justice to Franklin's memory demanded, Franklin himself was singularly devoid of any vindictive feeling.
In judging such conduct, both motive and size count.
That reference to the Republicans, in a speech on the Senate floor, prompted Senator Arlen Specter, Republican of Pennsylvania, to accuse Mr. Reid of violating a rule prohibiting senators from imputing "any conduct or motive unworthy or unbecoming a senator".
The rule states: "No Senator in debate shall, directly or indirectly, by any form of words impute to another Senator or to other Senators any conduct or motive unworthy or unbecoming a Senator".
McConnell invoked Rule XIX: "No Senator in debate shall, directly or indirectly, by any form of words impute to another Senator or to other Senators any conduct or motive unworthy or unbecoming a Senator".
McConnell invoked the little-used Rule XIX, which says that "No Senator in debate shall, directly or indirectly, by any form of words impute to another Senator or to other Senators any conduct or motive unworthy or unbecoming a Senator".
