The Washington Monthly

April 7, 2005

SCHIAVO MEMO UPDATE....Washington Post reporter Mike Allen — who's been a punching bag for conservative windbags for the past week — today revealed the source of that mysterious "Republican talking points memo" about Terri Schiavo. Guess what? It came from a Republican:

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.

....Sen. Tom Harkin (D-Iowa)...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 Florida woman's feeding tube. "He said these were talking points — something that we're working on here," Harkin said.

....At the time, other Senate Republican aides claimed to be familiar with the memo but declined to discuss it on the record and gave no information about its origin.

In other words, it's not the second coming of Rathergate. It was a real memo, written by a real Republican, and distributed to other real Republicans after it was drafted. (Harkin apparently got it by mistake. Martinez thought he was giving him a different document.)

Martinez has fired the errant staffer, calling the memo "stupid." With that, I hope that Power Line and Hugh Hewitt and Michelle Malkin and the rest of the crew trying to relive the glory days of Rathergate will take his lead and just STFU. Enough.

—Kevin Drum 12:40 AM Permalink | Trackbacks

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