Martinez (R-FL) admits his staffer wrote Schiavo talking points memo

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CAGiversary!
WASHINGTON (AP) — A one-page unsigned memo that became part of the debate preceding Congress' vote ordering a federal court review of the Terri Schiavo case originated in Florida Republican Sen. Mel Martinez' office, Martinez said Wednesday.

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 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.

Martinez told the AP's Matt Yancey and other news organizations in a written statement "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.

In the statement, Martinez said he accepted the resignation of the staffer, whom he did not identify, who drafted and circulated the memo. "This type of behavior and sentiment will not be tolerated in my office," he said.

"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.

[size=+2]Sen. Tom Harkin, D-Iowa, asked for information on the bill a Martinez authored in regards to the Schiavo case, Martinez said, and Martinez "pulled a one-page document from his coat pocket and handed to Harkin," according to AP.

"Unbeknownst to me," Martinez revealed, "I had given him a copy of the now infamous memo."[/size]

http://rawstory.com/martinez_memo_406.htm

Wow, the republicans are on a roll this week. But this goes to show that the buck stops everywhere except at their desk. Plus, the fact that these guys are idiots.
 
[quote name='PittsburghAfterDark']Also you fail to mention his legal counsel resigned and that resignation was accepted.

Tell the whole story next time ;).[/QUOTE]

In the statement, Martinez said he accepted the resignation of the staffer, whom he did not identify, who drafted and circulated the memo. "This type of behavior and sentiment will not be tolerated in my office," he said.
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Read the whole article next time ;) .
 
Hello kiddies, the article didn't say it was his legal counsel, it said "staffer".

Post an article that more accurately portrays the whole incident.
Link

Author Of Schiavo Memo Steps Forward

Politics - washingtonpost.com

By Mike Allen, Washington Post Staff Writer

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.

Oh snap!
 
Snap to your momma!

When will Congress and people forget about this bullshit?

They forgot about the enery problems about a week after the black out which is a much bigger deal. And they forgot about the space bullshit Bush said the next day.
 
[quote name='PittsburghAfterDark']Also you fail to mention his legal counsel resigned and that resignation was accepted.

Tell the whole story next time ;).[/QUOTE]

Speaking of the whole story, you haven't mentioned that this is the third time Martinez has blamed a political faux pas on a staffer.

Mel Martinez, in the Times' eyes, is merely a victim -- just like he was a victim in 2004, the Times says, when his campaign staff sent out a mailing that referred to fellow Republican Bill McCollum as "the new darling of the homosexual extremists." Martinez claimed he knew nothing about the 2004 mailing until a reporter brought it to his attention; this time around, he claims he was unaware of the contents of the Schiavo memo, despite the fact that he handed it to Harkin as an example of some "talking points" the Republicans were developing. The Times reports: "A source familiar with the 2004 campaign said that both the campaign-mailer incident and the Schiavo memo speak more to Mr. Martinez's easygoing management style than an attempt to use the case of Mrs. Schiavo, who died last week 13 days after her feeding tube was removed, for his party's political gain."

What about the 2004 press release from the Martinez campaign, the one that referred to U.S. immigration agents who seized Elian Gonzales as "armed thugs"? Martinez blamed that one on his staff, too, as the Miami Herald reminds us today. Was that the innocent human failing of "easygoing" Mel? As one Martinez supporter tells the Herald, "You can only blame staff so many times before people come back and look at you.''
Click to expand...

link

Mel's either really a bad judge of character when it comes to staff, or he likes to blame underlings for his mistakes. Which is it?
 
[quote name='MrBadExample']Speaking of the whole story, you haven't mentioned that this is the third time Martinez has blamed a political faux pas on a staffer.



link

Mel's either really a bad judge of character when it comes to staff, or he likes to blame underlings for his mistakes. Which is it?[/QUOTE]

I'll believe the latter, thank you.
 
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