The absurd defenses about the ‘memo’ and the attacks on the reporter have now reached a pinnacle of absurdity that is difficult to achieve- even in Washington.
A Republican aide, working for a Republican Senator, wrote the memo. Whether it was inept or incompetent or riddled with typos is pointless. A Republican wrote it.
The reporter claims it was circulated among Republicans. Republicans claim it was not. The same Republicans who said no Republican had anything to do with the memo. Whose word would you trust right now?
The actual memo may not have reached the Senate leadership. It didn’t have to- I watched the Schiavo debate on the idiot box. I heard the same talking points used over and over and over again.
Aides sometimes speak to other aides. Senate aides even talk to House aides. Aides sometimes informally, ie- verbally, pass on talking points to their Senator/Congresscritter. Ever seen the young people sitting behind the old people in televised committee hearings? The young person is an aide. Note how they whisper in the old person’s ears. I have reason to believe they talk behind closed doors, too.
The people defending this memo, denying that some (many?) in DC tried to politicize this, and denying that the talking points were widely used look about as stupid in my eyes as Dan Rather did when he said that “if the documents are not what we were led to believe, I’d like to break that story.”
Really, folks. You are embarassing yourselves. Take Kevin’s advice. Right now, in my eyes, the people still questioning the veracity of a memo that MARTINEZ HIMSELF HANDED TO TOM HARKIN remind me of the drunk guy at the wedding, who when subtlely informed by his wife that he has had too much to drink, stands up, and yells for all to hear:
“I am not -hic- drunk. I know -hic- when I have had too much to drink.”
Smart people would stop talking about this memo before they throw up on the bride.
*** Update ***
Or lose all their chips. More here.
Jay
Please. Take Kevin’s advice? I’ll agree with that the moment Drum says he was wrong about the Bush AWOL story which he pimped starting in the beginning of 2004!
John Cole
Yeah- but that doesn’t mean he isn’t right about this. There is no upside for Republicans. Period.
Fersboo
John, go find something else to do, you are going to give yourself a stroke. Trust me, the GOP ain’t going to miss ya.
Mason
It just might, Fersboo. This crap the GOP has been pulling will come back to haunt them.
CaseyL
I’m a Democrat, and there have been times the Party’s fringe elements said or did things that made me cringe. But the cringe was from embarrassment, not horror at what they were doing to the basic institutions of my country.
Today’s GOP is a wrecking ball. Suspension of habeus corpus. Policies made in secret, and sold to Congress and the American people with lies. Fiscal insanity, the latest example of which is Bush’s clear plan to default on SocSec. War against the judiciary. “Big Brother” rhetoric and policies aimed at our private lives. Torture and abuse of prisoners; hiding them from human rights organizations; lying about it all; and promoting the officers who gave the orders and set the tone. And, my god, what Bush & Co. have done to the military in general just boggles the mind: overstretched, underequipped, undertrained, demoralized soldiers who (after the recent court ruling) face stop-loss orders that could keep them in the armed forces, on active duty, for *26 years.*
This ain’t your Daddy’s GOP. This isn’t even Nixon’s GOP. Its enormities are exceeded only by its arrogant disregard for the country’s well-being.
I don’t know how you even begin to take back your Party, John. But you and the other moderates have got to do more than look-with-alarm and complain. You have to clean house, even if that means losing some elections.
S.W. Anderson
CaseyL, your comment speaks for me and many, many others.
I’ve long been more kindly disposed toward Democrats. But even so, in many a past year I felt things wouldn’t really be that bad, wouldn’t go that wrong, if Republicans were to take the reins for awhile.
With the coming of Atwater, Ailes, Reagan, Santorum, Nickles, Gingrich, DeLay and their ilk, those days are long gone. Too ideological, too doctrinary, too mean-spirited, too ruthless, too sold out to the highest bidder, too anything to win.
Geek, Esq.
The Republicans have won the battle of keeping their idiots and liars out of the spotlight better than the Dems.
No longer. It’s hard to say who looks more like an idiot and a liar–Mel Martinez or Assrocket.
Sav
“It’s hard to say who looks more like an idiot and a liar–Mel Martinez or Assrocket.”
And if that poetic, intelligent response doesn’t convince you, nothing will.
Jon Henke
You’ve lost me, John. While I disagree sharply with the Republicans position on the Schiavo case, I fail to see the problem with the memo. A politico evaluated the politics of a political issue. Big F*ing deal.
Unless they are doing something they actually disagree with for the popularity, what’s the problem? EVERY politician examines the consequences of a political issue. They’re politicians. It’s called politics.
Fargus
If it’s not such a big deal, then why couldn’t people have just come out and admitted it in the first place? Why hide it, and then have it come out later?
John Cole
Exactly. Because they knew that this was an issue that should transcend politics, but tat the same time they could not resist inserting themselkves into the issue in order to play to the far right base and to try to pain the Democrats into the corner.
Which is what I said from the beginning. Cripes- Sensennbrenner and those fools couldn’t even be bothered to learn how to say Terri Schiavo’s name correctly..
stephanie
Thank you Jon Henke! I so agree. I elect politicians to be, well, politicians. I lect themt o look at the politics of an action and examine the consequences- it’s how I can hold them accountable. I WANT them to look at the issues and see if it’s a smart move or a dumb one. Letting the memo get published? Dumb. Denying it after it was out? Dumb. But as a businessperson who has occassionally done an “oops” myself, this is not a big deal. Oh- and for the record, I am a liberal Democrat, not a republican trying to make excuses :-)
Fargus
Of course politicians are politicians. But when they’re trumpeting that the issues that they’re talking about are ones that transcend politics, stuff like this shouldn’t be thrown around from them.
You can’t go around blaming Democrats for having written it, thus implying that it was potentially damaging in the first place, and then turn around and ask what the big hairy deal is when the culpability is reversed.
stephanie
Fargus- I thought it wasn’t a big deal before it was known the republicans had done it
Jeff G
As someone who never blamed the Dems for this “memo” in the first place (I use the scare quotes, because so far as I can tell, the thing was never sent out anywhere), I am wholly unsurprised to find that it was written by a Republican Senate staffer. My concern, such as it was, with the whole ordeal is that ABC didn’t take care to definitively source the memo when the story broke. Which, in light of the Rather affair, seemed curious.
Having said all of that, I see no reason to pin this on any orchestrated Republican effort to politicize the Schiavo affair. Though I disagreed with many of the Repubs on this (and have even had certain conservatives de-link my site for supposedly pushing a “pagan liberal agenda” on the basis of my rather moderate stand on Schiavo), I still believe the majority of those who took the Schindler position were doing so out of conscience and not expedience. Consequently, while I’m unsurprised by this “memo,” I’d very skeptical that it’s part of some broad GOP talking points campaign. That Harkin is the only Senator who admits to seeing it lends credence to Martinez’ story.
Sav
That position just about makes you a member of the Taliban around here, Jeff.
Nash
My concern, such as it was, with the whole ordeal is that ABC didn’t take care to definitively source the memo when the story broke.
If by “definitively source the memo” you actually mean *identify* the source, that’s a ludicrous demand. You can choose to believe ABC’s story or not, but they are under no obligation to burn a source who has given a not-for-attribution statement that they have independent reason to believe is accurate. Indeed, at this point, they are under an ethical obligation *not* to reveal these sources.
And, for the record, you should note that ABC continues to maintain that they have multiple credible sources and that these sources indicate that Martinez was not the only Republican Senator who had possession of that memo.
In particular, ABC spokesman Jeffrey Schneider said “ABC News had very reliable, multiple sources who indicated the memo was distributed to Republicans on the floor of the Senate. We have no doubt it was distributed to Republicans.”
In addition, the Washington Post has at least one source saying that Martinez staff may have given the memo to other Republicans:
A Martinez aide who refused to be named said the departed aide, counsel Brian H. Darling, “may have disseminated to other offices” a memo that discussed the political ramifications of intervening in the case of Schiavo.
If that needs explanation, that means the Post has a Republican source who has given them a confirmable suggestion that this memo was handed to other Republicans outside of Martinez office.
Third, the Washington Times, yes the Washington Times, continues to insist that a Senate Republican other than Martinez, being outraged at the memo’s implications, gave it to a Democratic colleague. (Side speculation is that the Wash. Times was really pissed at being burned by the strong hint that Martinez and others lied to them, and thus are doing some burning of their own in classic fashion.)
Not one, I repeat, not one of these news organizations has recanted their stories–they all continue to insist their sources are solid and believable. In at least two of the examples, multiple sources were consulted.
So, arguing about whether it’s proper to call it a “GOP talking points memo” continues to be so much misdirecting hogwash, the shallowest bit of sophistication that doesn’t go over dear ol’ Sav’s noggin. What is important is that these media outlets are warning you that they are being told that there are more Republicans involved in this than have been so far publicly outed and that they believe these sources. This puts them in the position of being able to do the next round of reporting that will point to who it amongst the Republicans that continues to lie about this.
Sav
Nash, you really need to get a life and stop fixating on me.
“Third, the Washington Times, yes the Washington Times, continues to insist that a Senate Republican other than Martinez, being outraged at the memo’s implications, gave it to a Democratic colleague.”
This is an example of what one might call misdirection.
Here’s what the Times actually said:
“A Democratic senator received the memo from an outraged Republican senator,” a Senate Democratic aide said yesterday, on the condition of anonymity.
So a Democratic aide claimed this and the Times reported it. The Times didn’t insist on anything. The ‘ole switcharoo on your part there. Not very honest of you.
Jeff G
If there are other Republican Senators who knew about this and it turns out that they are lying about having not seen the memo, I’ll be outraged then. But until that time, all we have is a bunch of anonymously attributed allegations.
As I said before, I didn’t jump on this being a Dem plant; so I’m not going to jump on the Republican conspiracy and cover-up angle yet, either.
Jill
Mike Allen and ABC News have embarrassed themselves. Both ended up saying they didnt say things that they clearly did. This whole things is more embarrassing to them than to the Republicans. And most average Americans would agree this was hardly newsworthy enough to breathlessly report on the ABC World News Tonight.
Kimmitt
This whole things is more embarrassing to them than to the Republicans.
No, I think the part where Republican Senators are passing around ghoulish notes about how best to exploit a sick woman’s suffering is more damaging than any technical errors on the reporting.
Jill
One stupid memo from a lowly staffer isn’t the big deal the media and Dems want to make it. Sorry. And politicians will always be politicians. But I expect accuracy from the media.
You lose again.
Jill
One more thing. At least Mel Martinez is expressing outrage. At least he’s having an investigation of his staff. Last time we had a memo scandal about the Dems using national security and 9/11 as a political ploy I don’t remember any such outrage from the media or from Dems. I also don’t remember Rockefeller or anyone else doing any kind of “investigation” except for wanting to do an “investigation” on how Republicans got a hold of their scandalous and sick memo.
There is still a HUGE difference in Republicans and Democrats. Democrats have no shame whatsoever.
Nash
Here’s what the Times actually said:
“A Democratic senator received the memo from an outraged Republican senator,” a Senate Democratic aide said yesterday, on the condition of anonymity.
So a Democratic aide claimed this and the Times reported it. The Times didn’t insist on anything. The ‘ole switcharoo on your part there. Not very honest of you.
I’d agree that my use of the word “insist” with regard to what the Washington Times is doing is not accurate. But you are wrong if you think mainstream media routinely run with controversial quotes without some reason to believe, independent of that particular source, that it is true. Standard practice would be for the journalist’s immediate supervisor to know the identity of the source being quoted and to have made a decision that the source was believable. Believable, that’s all. It doesn’t prove anything, it doesn’t need to stand up in any court, it may not even turn out to be true, it just means that journalistically, it has passed the bar for publication. I guess it comes down to, how much do you trust the Washington Times’ competence on this? The believability of a news outlet is built on reputation for getting that sort of thing right, and it’s even more easily lost by running with uncorroborated, eventually untrue, quotes. So, it’s just a different way of looking at it. I think Jeff G has the proper perspective from the other side of the aisle–he isn’t saying “it’s all a lie”, because he knows he doesn’t have the information to prove that, but he is also saying that he’s not going to assume it true, until he sees more evidence. Agnostic is a reasonable position in this–I’m not, because I feel the evidence *is* accumulating, but the only person I’m going to debate with is the one who comes here and says “Well, Dan Rather lied, so this is a lie.”
A word of advice–you might consider letting the “fixation” thing, if that’s what you want to term it, roll off. Don’t respond to me, Sav, ignore me. If you have such a need to respond to every thing I say, you need to reconsider who is doing the fixating. I’m just providing evidence in support of my contentions, while taking the opportunities to needle you, because you are, emotionally, what one might call a target of opportunity. Let it go.
Jill
My favorite part of all this is how Mike Allen and the ABC reporter both backed off some of their earlier reporting. Then they denied ever saying it was “Republican Talking Points” that came from Republicans. Oh really? Powerline put their quotes on their blog which showed they said EXACTLY that.
Do these liberal reporters never realize we can research their exact quotes?
Love it!
Nash
*My* favorite part of this is having someone cite Powerline as an authoritative source…and apparently meaning it!