De nada, “Hoke.” And I believe I would prefer “Mr. Buzzkill.”

I was going to remind you that Filet-o-Fish is going to be on the “Citizen Journalist Report” with Bill and Jeff, but with my luck he’ll say something semi-coherent instead of drooling into the microphone and electrocuting himself when Jeff starts talking about noshing on peanut butter cups dipped in honey, and you’ll shoot the messenger for that, too. Jeez.

Well, it's not the pure hoax those in the dextrosphere speculated it might be.

Not a "hoax" at all. What exactly do you mean by "not the pure hoax"

Neither, however, was it "distributed by party leaders."

Yeah, sure. We'll take your word for it. I've wouldn't be suprised to find out that Darling is buying home in Maui with his resignation benefits

It seems to have been written by aid to Senator Mel Martinez (R (damnit) - Florida), who apparently was hired as part of a Give a Retard a Job program.

Hey, since the crazy blog money doesn't seem to be panning out, maybe you can get a job through that program.

I mean if you really buy the bullshit you're spewing, you probably qualify...

I sure am glad that Mel beat Betty Castor in the Florida Senate race, but this guy is going to get nailed, big time. The media has been calling him Bush's lotion boy for more than a year, and he did show some pretty poor judgment durinng the campaign.

There were allegations of dirty politics when members of his campaign staff promoted the idea that former US Congressman from Orlando, Bill McCollum, favored gay unions and that sort of thing. Actually, those tactics weren't needed; Mel easily carried the GOP primary.

And McCollum is about as exciting as a doorknob, and he'd have had his ass handed to him by Betty Castor.

So now the guy has a track record for this sort of stuff. I don't know if this guy can get away from this, but let's hope that 1) time will help the voters to forget this shit, and 2) he does some good things for the bulk of his term.

But boy this gives the MSM new ammunition for Bloggers making hay out of this, and also gives them a chance to sledge hammer the shit out of Mel.

I like Mel, even stupid Mel. But fuck, Mel, get your shit together, man. Start shoving it up Castro's ass, and many of us Floridians will forget about you just having made an ass out of yourself. Unintentionally, perhaps, but ass nonetheless.

Martinez isn't in any immediate danger of impressing me, but according to Power Line it looks like Senator Dimbulb may have passed the memo unread to Tom Harkin, who proceeded to leak it to ABC. Martinez claims that he never saw the memo, much less any other Republican senator. That's not exactly "[a declaration by] Republican leaders," or "distributed to Republican senators by party leaders," as WaPo reported.

So ABC and the Post look biased to the point of dishonesty, and Martinez looks like an idiot. Not a very inspiring story, I have to admit.

utron:

You are right, that ABC and the WaPo are still wrong in their depiction of the memo, and that they did show dishonesty and bias, but they'll run with this fast, claiming they were right all along.

In the long term, I agree, the fallout from this won't hurt Bloggers, but in the short-term, it will give the ivory tower MSM the ability to say "Trust us, not the conspiracy nuts." I'm more afraid of ABC's reach than the Post's. They've got millions of viewers, not hundreds of thousands of readers.

Regardless, Mel needs a visit from Vinny Falcone.

Agreed, KCTrio: Vinnie needs to get medieval on your freshman senator's culo. But, although I may be sanguine here, I don't think this has much mileage as a story of MSM vs. the bloggers. Most of the blogs on the right that have been following this story seem to be stepping up and acknowledging the facts, so conspiracy and denial remain largely a moonbat franchise. Not a good story, but not much harm has been done.

On that note, I'm off for the night. I expect DU will have some gleefully incoherent threads in the morning.

Guys, is it just me or should you really NOT be allowed to be a senator if you're dumb as a fucking box of hammers?

Anyway, go to bed, you slackers.

Actually, from now on, I'm going to call anyone who can't sign their fucking name "colon" as in "you suck shit out of a 650 pound bedridden Norwegian's colon"

Damn that's really annoying

Oh, it gets worse. Brian Darling was General Counsil to Senator Bob Smith of NH, who formerly held the title of the stupidest Senator before Sununu chased him in the Primaries. The current stupidest Senator is widely acknowledged to be Barbara Boxer...though Mel Martinez just blinding handing Republican talking points to Harkin unread may mean he is vying with Boxer.

And Brian Darling was the one who helped draft the "Save Terri!" Senate measure introduced by Martinez.

And Brian Darling has ties to the Right to Life.

When I read it, I thought it was written by a stupid right wing Republican with links to the religious zealots. Sen Biden, a master at borrowing inspiration from other tongues, declared:
Sen. Joseph R. Biden Jr. (D-Del.) said he believed that the memo originated with the GOP because it is "totally consistent" with how the Republicans have operated for the past four years. "They just shouldn't lose their memos," he said.

Indeed! For Mel Martinez's plum Terri Shiavo debate gift, Harkin owes him one.

So in other words a zealot on the schiavo case gave a draft memo to a freshman senator who gave it unread to a democrat...

This is more like the 3 stooges than some massive conspiracy by the GOP overlords.....remind me again how the media portrayed it?

Brian Darling, you say, cf?

I see ties to the airline industry and "citizens for conservative gov't", but no right to life.

I see no connection on a simple GIS search

http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&lr=&q=%22brian+darling%22+%22right+to+life%22

Or by "ties" do you mean he knows people who are conservative like he is?

Criminy, I have "ties" to RtL, though I'm not a member in the least. YOU have "ties" to right to life, most likely.

It's not like he's a fucking board member or something.

Why must you just pull shit out of your ass like that? YOu only look more like a crank than usual.

Does he have "ties" to the Jooos, to, b/c he knows a guy named Schwartz?

Hmmm. . . I like colon better than April, but it doesn't really fit-- I don't see a colon up there.

Seriously, who let these schmucks onto the site?

Hmmm, I was pretty sure this was a hoax. Very disappointing, especially since I don't for a second believe Mel Martinez up until yesterday had no idea he was in any way involved with this memo.

What are we supposed to believe, that he gave it to Harkin without reading it, and that subsequent to that he never read it himself? And that he never heard about the memo controversy? Or that he did hear about the memo controversy but never thought, uh oh, maybe he'd better reading that "talking points" memo he gave to Harkin and see if that was the memo in question?

Sorry, but Cedarford is right on this one: Martinez is a moron.

You want good news? THESE are the opposition in the next election.

Bring. It. On.

Movie treatment needed:

Despite the efforts of a hostile press, a crusty yet benign political party wins over common sense voters, and reversing its historical role as the loyal opposition, becomes the majority political party controlling all 3 branches of the federal government. Thus history is made despite the fact that at a critical point prior to the election, a brilliant political strategist "loses" a critical super-sensitive, Powerpoint strategy presentation which is used by opposition party to recruit a billionaire sugar daddy, who in turn is convinced (largely on the basis of the "lost Powerpoint") to dedicate his fortune to support the opposition party.

Unable to convince its own former National Security Advisor to commit felonies to aid the party, the crusty yet benign political party turns to a newly elected Senator from key battleground state to shoot himself in the foot, or as one party official is rumored to have said: "We wouldn't want the voting public to think there is a real difference between us and our cynical opponents."

A shadowy, Tom Clancy-like character periodically appears in the background and makes pithy observations like:
"Deep throat was right -- forget the myth about these guys -- they aren't that smart ... or are they?"

Personally, I think this is probably a good learning opportunity for bloggers. We can't afford to screw things up again, or we'll have to endure the insufferable giggling of O-Dub in the future.

Has anyone checked his site today? He's in full friggin' gloat mode. We've got to be more careful, because it ain't a pretty sight over there.

What am I missing here? Malkin and PL never said the Dems created the memo, they suggested that as one of the possibilities and noted that Allen could not tell you otherwise. This is why Allen should not have run the story.

And what has changed? Was the memo distributed by party leaders, as they said? Fuck no. Without knowing where it came from, they should have spiked the piece. If they knew all along, they should have represented it correctly.

It's shitty journalism, which is what we all ought to be concerned about. Let the moonbats run around covering the asses of their anointed and let's keep our eyes on the ball.

If Mike Allen had gotten his facts right in the first place - that it was an unsigned memo by an aide to a freshman Republican senator, not GOP talking points and not distributed by party leaders - he would not have had a story. Luckily, he was able to create additional 'facts' to make it ink-worthy.

So it wasn't a hoax, exactly. Only a biased, unprofessional, inaccurate botch-job. His employers should be so proud.

Yawn...could someone tell me why I would give a damn about this if I were a flaming liberal, somewhere to the right of the Kahn, or a mush-minded simp somewhere in "the middle"?

From the start, this "story" was about as intriguing as staring into a toilet pondering the length and girth of my latest "product".

Too bad the Manny Miranda memos didn't get such coverage.
Maybe then we'd have the dirty low down on REAL Senior Dem leadership schemes and talking points

and Miranda would still have his job.

Rockefeller, Leahy, and Kennedy shrieked and bawled to cover up the content of those little gems
and stupid Orin Hatch screamed even louder and covered up even faster, to help the lying Dems
conceal those memos from us

Gee, isn't this just like the Sandy Bergler memo fiasco...both parties cover up for his high crime....and we don't get to see what he and Bubba wrote on their copies of that After Action Report

that's why they're called the Stupid Party and the Evil Party. and we're called screwed