This is why you do not want to poke a bear with a sharp stick
For weeks the wingnut crowd had been indignantly proclaiming that the infamous Terri Schiavo Talking Points memo" was a forgery. They were particularly vocal in basing the WaPo (who broke the story) demanding a retraction and apology "now that the memo was proven to be a forgery"
Well that just made the Post pick that rock back up, and guess what came crawling out? Mike Allen of the Washington Post tracked down the author of the Memo and its no Forgery:
The legal counsel to Sen. Mel Martinez (R-Fla.) admitted yesterday that he was the author of a memo citing the political advantage to Republicans of intervening in the case of Terri Schiavo, the senator said in an interview last night.
Brian H. Darling, 39, a former lobbyist for the Alexander Strategy Group on gun rights and other issues, offered his resignation and it was immediately accepted, Martinez said.
Ironic isn't it that a former Gun Lobbyist would be the one to fall on his sword?
Martinez of course was in full damage control mode:
Martinez, the GOP's Senate point man on the issue, said he earlier had been assured by aides that his office had nothing to do with producing the memo. "I never did an investigation, as such," he said. "I just took it for granted that we wouldn't be that stupid.
Really Mel? You're a republican and you took THAT for granted? Boy do you have a lot to learn. He then followed up that bit of incredulity with a screaming lie:
It was never my intention to in any way politicize this issue."
See? Now you were stretching credibility with that whole "never believed we'd be that Stupid" thing. You shattered it outright with that statement. This whole Theatres d' Macabre was Nothing BUT a political sideshow from start to finish. And By the By, you'd look a lot more honest, if, after reading the memo, you'd have angrily crumpled it up and thrown it away.
But you didn't, instead you distributed it. The memo that says right at the top: "this is a great political Issue for us". Can't imagine why anyone would think you were trying to politicize anything.
Also for someone who was amazed at the stupidity level of his staff, Martinez proved he's no brain surgeon himself. He personally gave a copy to a democratic Senator
Harkin said in an interview that Martinez handed him the memo on the Senate floor, in hopes of gaining his support for the bill giving federal courts jurisdiction in the Florida case in an effort to restore the brain-damaged Florida woman's feeding tube. "He said these were talking points -- something that we're working on here," Harkin said.
So the mystery of Who, oh Who could have leaked this memo seems solved as well. Anybody could have figured that out. Anybody, of course, but those fine Senate investigative staffers we all fund to get to the bottom of nefarious goings on, administration scandals, breakdowns in national security, responsibility for faulty intelligence, and of course steroid use
The mystery of the memo's origin had roiled the Capitol, with Republicans accusing Democrats of concocting the document as a dirty trick, and Democrats accusing Republicans of trying to duck responsibility for exploiting the dying days of an incapacitated woman.
The staff of the Senate Rules and Administration Committee, at the request of a Democrat, spent a week trying to determine the memo's origin and had come up empty, said an official involved in the investigation.
Whew! You know I sleep better at night knowing the Senate employs such crack bloodhound investigators, don't you?
So the question of the hour is, When can we expect that same apology from the Powerline crew and their affiliated Wing nuts that they were so keen on demanding from the Post?
