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. Martinez, the GOP's Senate point man on the issue, 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.
But not only was his staff that stupid, Martinez did them one better. The freshman Senator gave the memo to Sen. Tom Harkin (D-Iowa) on the floor of the Senate.
Freshman Martinez' explanation seems a bit shoddy too. He said:
"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.
---snip---
"It was intended to be a working draft," Martinez said. "He (Martinez's chief of staff) doesn't really know how I got it."
I really have a hard time swallowing the " I have NO idea how a memo my staffer wrote ended up in my possession" Excuse. This is one lame defense. And the sad thing is it will fly.
Of course the right wing bloggers will be disappointed as they were hyping this memo as the next "Rathergate Memo" which they could use to slam the Democrats.
Probably the only thing to come of this will be the need for the Frosh Senator to read the "Dirty Tricks for Dummies" preamble: (*cough* didn't think this had to be spelled out to anyone but...) Don't give a memo on how to smear the opposition, to the opposition.
No comments:
Post a Comment