As conspiracy theories go, the idea that Senate Democrats falsified GOP talking points on Terri Schiavo to make Republicans look bad was always pretty weak. Dems, frankly, just aren’t that clever.
I’ve avoided giving the theories too much attention because I was waiting to see if Republicans came up with any shred of compelling proof. They said it wasn’t on GOP letterhead, which was true, but irrelevant. They said there were typos in the document, but unless Republicans are known to be great typists, this wasn’t persuasive either.
I was particularly inclined to reject these accusations when Harry Reid and Frank Lautenberg publicly said they’d like to see an investigation into the origin of the memo. If Dems were behind the scheme, this wouldn’t make any sense.
But making sense was never part of the right-wing plan, so they whined incessantly about this alleged “dirty trick” for weeks. It dominated right-wing blogs, right-wing talk radio, right-wing newspapers, and eventually garnered attention in the mainstream press.
And now it’s time for all of them to accept responsibility and apologize.
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.
Oops.
A few things to keep in mind, now that this ridiculousness has been resolved.
* Republicans really were looking at the Schiavo case as “a great political issue.”
* As recently as this week, all 55 Republican senators, including Martinez, said they had never seen the memo. We now know that many of these lawmakers weren’t telling the truth.
* Don’t accept spin that Darling was just some overzealous, low-level staffer. We’re talking about a top legal counsel for a U.S. senator, not some summer intern.
The real entertainment should be seeing the furious right-wing rationalizing today and tomorrow. I can hardly wait to see what they come up with. How about this:
Maybe Darling, despite his career in conservative politics, was really a Dem spy! He infiltrated Martinez’s office, biding his time, knowing someday he’d be able write up an embarrassing memo that would make the GOP look bad! In fact, he was instructed on how to do this by Dan Rather! It all makes sense now!