Mel Martinez's nonexplanation for a memo touting the political benefits of Terri Schiavo's case follows a pattern of pleading ignorance and passing the buck.
A Times Editorial
Published April 8, 2005
The freshman U.S. senator who chose Terri Schiavo as his first political cause now has his fingerprints, literally, on the coarsest partisan dispatch in the entire unseemly debate. But Mel Martinez, in acknowledging he circulated an unsigned memo advising congressional Republicans that Schiavo was "a great political issue," defended his actions by what amounts to diminished capacity.
Martinez wrote Wednesday that he did in fact pull a paper from his coat pocket and hand it to a fellow senator. "Unbeknownst to me," he then explained, "instead of a one-pager 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." This gets better. Martinez fingered his office's legal counsel, Brian Darling, as the author of the memo, but said Darling "doesn't really know how I got it."
In other words, the memo jumped from Darling's computer to the office printer to Martinez's coat pocket to the hand of Sen. Tom Harkin, D-Iowa, without human intervention. Call it a political miracle.
Martinez hurried off to Rome for the pope's funeral, leaving only a statement. In it, he wrote that: 1) Darling had resigned; 2) "I vehemently condemn this memo's sentiments," and 3) the memo "was not approved by me or any other member of my staff." Unfortunately, this is becoming pro forma damage control for the new senator. Those in Florida who witnessed his ugly election campaign have heard the tune before.
Remember when the campaign treated reporters to a conference call that branded an opponent's political consultant as a homosexual? Martinez said the activists weren't speaking for him. Remember when the campaign mailed a slick brochure depicting his primary opponent, former U.S. Rep. Bill McCollum, as backing "the radical homosexual lobby"? Martinez said "those words were spoken by others." Remember when his office sent e-mails to Miami radio stations depicting federal agents in the 2000 Elian Gonzalez ordeal as "armed thugs"? Martinez blamed "someone who was writing for the campaign."
The unsigned Schiavo memo was the subject of intense speculation over the past few weeks, but Martinez said he saw no reason, prior to questions being raised by Washington newspapers, to ask his own staff. That's odd, since one of the eight talking points - "this legislation ensures that individuals like Terri Schiavo are guaranteed the same legal protections as convicted murderers like Ted Bundy" - was almost the same as the headline on his own press release announcing the bill two weeks earlier.
Martinez's claim that the memo just "at some point along the way came into" his grasp will no doubt keep the late-night comics busy. But he does himself no favors even among those who will take him at his word. To believe his story is to accept that he can't keep up with his own staff, what they write or what someone sticks in his coat pocket.
Martinez keeps insisting his goal is to serve Florida as a centrist statesman, in much the manner of retired Sen. Bob Graham. But the Schiavo memo is part of a sorry pattern that is not easy, as the senator himself apparently discovered, to explain away.
