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Unwatched pockets and unruly staffs

By PHILIP GAILEY
Published April 10, 2005

Before dashing off to Rome to attend the funeral of Pope John Paul II, Florida Republican Sen. Mel Martinez had to clean up an embarrassing little spill from the Terri Schiavo political drama, in which he played a leading role.

Remember the mysterious memo circulating among Republican senators saying congressional intervention in the Schiavo case was "a great political issue" for the GOP and "a tough issue for Democrats," including Florida Sen. Bill Nelson?

And remember how Republicans, including Martinez, disavowed and condemned the unsigned memo and suggested it was the work of Democratic dirty tricksters?

As everyone who reads a newspaper now knows, the infamous memo's author is none other than a senior Martinez staffer, legal counsel Brian H. Darling, who used to work at a lobbying firm started by former aides to Tom DeLay, the rabid House majority leader.

It gets even better. Martinez claims he inadvertently gave a copy of the memo to Sen. Tom Harkin, a liberal Democrat from Iowa, thinking he was handing him background information on the Schiavo bill. Martinez said he had not read the memo and has no idea how it wound up in his coat pocket. He ordered an internal investigation after Harkin called him on Wednesday to say he believed the Florida senator had given him a copy of the memo.

"This type of behavior and sentiment will not be tolerated in my office," Martinez said after accepting Darling's resignation. When he returns from Rome maybe the senator can help clear up the greatest mystery since the 181/2-minute gap in one of Richard Nixon's Watergate tapes - how the memo ended up in his coat pocket "unbeknownst to me"? Is there some mysterious force at work in his office? Or did an aide hand the memo to him without alerting the senator that he was stuffing a political grenade in his coat pocket? And why did Darling feel the need to write a memo on the partisan advantage of Republicans using the tragedy of a severely brain-damaged woman to excite their prolife base?

Everyone knows that U.S. senators are very important and very busy people. They rely on their staffs to keep them on schedule, prepare issue briefing papers, write their speeches and, in some cases, fetch a cup of java. But even the best staff cannot always protect a senator from himself.

I realize Martinez has been in the Senate less than four months and still has a lot to learn. But maybe Republicans should consider appointing a guardian to help Martinez manage his affairs as a senator and keep him out of trouble.

At the very least he needs a staffer whose job is to vet the contents of Martinez's pockets before he leaves the office, or drops his jacket off at the dry cleaner. A senator who walks around with documents he hasn't read could be considered a security risk. For example, what if he handed a reporter a classified intelligence document that he mistakenly thought was a copy of his speech in support of oil drilling in Alaska's Arctic National Wildlife Refuge?

Clearly, Martinez - also known as Sen. Bush because of his eagerness to please his political masters, Gov. Jeb Bush and President George W. Bush - needs help. But as he tells it, he can't depend on his Senate staff any more than he could his campaign staff. They're always doing ugly things in his name without his knowledge or permission.

For example, when his campaign attacked his primary opponent, conservative Bill McCollum, as a darling of "the radical homosexual lobby," Martinez blamed the ads on "young turks" in his campaign and apologized to McCollum. Same story when his campaign put out a news release calling federal agents "armed thugs" for seizing Elian Gonzalez and returning him to his father in Cuba. Martinez said he had nothing to do with the release.

If the senator has a staff problem, it is one of his own making. He picks his staff and sets the standards he expects them to meet, in the campaign and his Senate office.

Meanwhile, his Republican colleagues are doing a damage assessment from the Terri Schiavo debacle in which Martinez had a starring role, taking his party out on a political limb that snapped. One thing should be clear to them: The senator from Florida is not ready for prime time.

Philip Gailey's e-mail address is gailey@sptimes.com

[Last modified April 10, 2005, 00:40:18]