Joined: Sat Oct 16, 2004 10:46 pm Posts: 9617 Location: Medford, Oregon Gender: Male
If you remember, there was a highly publicized memo floating around right when Congress got involved that talked about how great this could be for rallying the base, etc. Basically admitting to what everyone knows anyway. Anway, everyone denied they had anything to do with it, but now.....
Author Of Schiavo Memo Steps Forward
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 Darling, a former lobbyist for the Alexander Strategy Group on gun rights and other issues, offered his resignation and it was immediately accepted, Martinez said.
Martinez 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. It was never my intention to in any way politicize this issue."
Martinez, a freshman who was secretary of housing and urban development for most of President Bush's first term, said he had not read the one-page memo. He said he inadvertently passed it to Sen. Tom Harkin (news, bio, voting record) (D-Iowa), who had worked with him on the issue. After that, other Senate aides gave the memo to reporters for ABC News and The Washington Post.
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 Florida woman's feeding tube. "He said these were talking points -- something that we're working on here," Harkin said.
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 a brain-damaged woman.
Conservative Web logs have challenged the authenticity of the memo, in some cases likening it to the discredited documents about Bush's National Guard service that CBS News reported last fall.
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.
The unsigned memo -- which initially misspells Schiavo's first name and gives the wrong number for the pending bill -- includes eight talking points in support of the legislation and calls the controversy "a great political issue."
"This legislation ensures that individuals like Terri Schiavo are guaranteed the same legal protections as convicted murderers like Ted Bundy," the memo concludes.
It asserts that the case would appeal to the party's core supporters, saying: "This is an important moral issue and the pro-life base will be excited that the Senate is debating this important issue."
The document was provided to ABC News on March 18 and to The Post on March 19 and was included in news reports about congressional intervention in the Schiavo case. Bush returned from an Easter vacation in Texas and signed the bill shortly after 1 a.m. on March 21.
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 a statement issued last night, Martinez said that Harkin asked him for background information on the bill and that he gave him what he thought was a routine one-page staff memo on the legislation. "Unbeknownst to me, instead of my one page on the bill, I had given him a copy of the now infamous memo that at some point along the way came into my possession," the statement said.
Harkin said that when he read the part about the politics of the case he thought that was "rather out of line," but he said he did not discuss the matter with Martinez. Harkin said he has no complaints about Martinez.
"I really worked in good faith with Senator Martinez on this issue and I found him to be a decent, caring person to work with on this, and so I have a lot of respect for him," Harkin said.
Martinez said Harkin called him about 5 p.m. yesterday and told him that the memo had come from his office. Martinez said he then called in his senior staff and said, "Something is wrong here." He said that Darling later confessed to John Little, Martinez's chief of staff, and that he said he did not think he had ever printed the memo.
"It was intended to be a working draft," Martinez said. "He doesn't really know how I got it."
Efforts to reach Darling last night were unsuccessful.
Sen. Frank Lautenberg (news, bio, voting record) (D-N.J.), a member of the Rules and Administration Committee, wrote to the panel's leaders last week to ask for an investigation into the "document, its source, and how it came to be distributed."
"Those who would attempt to influence debate in the United States Senate should not hide behind anonymous pieces of paper," he said.
A Republican Senate official, who spoke on the condition of anonymity because he is not a committee spokesman, said yesterday that an informal inquiry began almost immediately and is likely to be concluded within a week. He said that conversations with senators, aides and reporters have turned up nothing definitive and that the inquiry is likely to end with a letter to Lautenberg saying just that.
Senate Minority Leader Harry M. Reid (D-Nev.) said in an interview Friday that he considered it "ludicrous" to suggest that his party created the document and said Republicans were using such talk to divert responsibility.
"I guess the best defense is a good offense -- that's their theory," he said.
In interviews at the Capitol yesterday, senators from both sides said they find the case perplexing, and a sign of the intense partisanship that permeates the building. Sen. Orrin G. Hatch (news, bio, voting record) (R-Utah) said that the torrent of accusations reflects the bitterness over the life-and-death issues in the Schiavo case, which he said were a proxy on both sides for what provokes "every other ugly political conversation -- that's abortion."
Sen. Joseph R. Biden (news, bio, voting record) Jr. (D-Del.) said he believed that the memo originated with the GOP because it is "totally consistent" with how the Republicans have operated for the past four years. "They just shouldn't lose their memos," he said.
WASHINGTON (AP) -- Sen. Mel Martinez said Wednesday an infamous unsigned memo passed around on Capitol Hill emphasizing the politics of the Terri Schiavo case originated in his office.
The memo -- first reported by ABC News on March 18 and by The Washington Post and The Associated Press two days later -- said the fight going on then over removing Schiavo's feeding tube "is a great political issue ... and a tough issue for Democrats."
"This is an important moral issue and the pro-life base will be excited that the Senate is debating this important issue," said the memo, which was described at the time as being circulated among Senate Republicans while legislation was being considered to place the Schiavo case under the jurisdiction of federal courts.
Martinez, R-Florida, said in a written statement that he discovered Wednesday that the memo had been written by an aide in his office.
"It is with profound disappointment and regret that I learned today that a senior member of my staff was unilaterally responsible for this document," Martinez said.
He said he accepted the resignation of the staffer who drafted and circulated the memo. "This type of behavior and sentiment will not be tolerated in my office," he said.
Martinez did not identify the aide, but The Washington Post said he was the senator's legal counsel, Brian Darling.
"Until this afternoon, I had never seen it and had no idea a copy of it had ever been in my possession," Martinez said of the document. He had previously denied knowing anything about the memo and condemned its sentiments.
The memo had been disavowed by Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist, R-Tennessee, and House Majority Leader Tom DeLay, R-Texas, both primary forces behind Congress passing the bill and sending it to President Bush on March 21.
Democrats had pounced on the document as evidence that Republicans were seeking a political advantage in the fight between Schiavo's husband and her parents over removing her feeding tube 15 years after she incurred severe brain damage that left her incapacitated.
Schiavo, 41, died a week ago in a Florida hospice, 13 days after the feeding tube was removed. During the interim, federal courts repeatedly rejected what Republicans said was the intent of the bill: to have the tube reinserted and prolong Schiavo's life.
Martinez, in his statement, said Sen. Tom Harkin, D-Iowa, had asked for background information on the bill ordering a federal court to review the Schiavo case.
He said he pulled a one-page document from his coat pocket and handed to Harkin. "Unbeknownst to me ... I had given him a copy of the now infamous memo."
He said Harkin had called him earlier Wednesday to say he believes the memo had been given to him by Martinez. The Florida senator said he then ordered an internal investigation in his office.
Allison Dobson, a spokeswoman for Harkin, said the Iowa Democrat had received the memo from Martinez in the days leading up to passage of the bill.
Martinez said he also had apologized to Sen. Bill Nelson, D-Florida, who is up for re-election in 2006 and was cited in the memo because he had declined to become a sponsor of the bill.
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