That Memo, and a Question
Having read naught but the Economist, Hemingway and Joyce (plus a few other “books” printed on “paper”) for the past month, I have absolutely nothing to add to the memo story. I will say, however, that had I seen the pdf of the memo posted on the Post website, I think I would have been inclined to be sceptical of both sides. This is what a lot of memoranda prepared by staffers for legislators look like. Senators have to vote quite frequently, and sometimes they might not be entirely sure what amendment or resolution they’re voting for; that’s why they hire legislative assistants to keep track of such matters for them. (This isn’t dishonest or lazy in any way, either: A lot of votes are pretty easy to determine for a staffer, given the officeholder’s philosophy and party affiliation. A Senator better serves the public by giving the whole of his attention to other matters rather than spending a few hours a day determining how to vote on each procedural motion.)
The tone of the memo is just about right for such a document, as is its length, for a floor memorandum. It’s still entirely possible that Senator Martinez is telling the truth, and that he accidentally handed a sheaf of papers including the unread memo to Senator Harkin. But I can’t for the life of me understand why this piece of paper, even given that it is a Republican staffer’s document, has caused such a fuss. The only halfway objectionable part of the document–and if anyone’s offended by this, they should go back to high school civics class and stay the heck away from real life–is calling the Schiavo bill “a great political issue” because “this is a tough political issue for Democrats.”
Lawsy me! Those Senators are talkin’ about politics agin! Golly, Ma, what’ll we tell the children?
Frankly, the real problem here is the tone-deafness of the Republican staffer in question, given that the polls showed a majority of Americans disapproving of the bill. (Unless the polls also showed that the pro-tube minority was much, much more intense in its feelings than the majority, which is likely.)
I guarantee you that similar memos are handed out by Democratic staffers whenever similar bills are on the floor–in fact, I bet that somewhere out there is a Democratic equivalent that just didn’t get handed over to the other side. Or, if there aren’t similar memos, then there are at least similar conversations. (Indeed, the only remarkable thing about this memo is that it came from a Senator’s office. Had it been written as a blog post or an op-ed column, it would have passed unnoticed.)
Moving on to international affairs, which is what I do (in case you’ve forgotten me): Why is it that in Germany, posters for the new Will Smith vehicle Hitch use the subtitle Der Date Doktor while in France the same movie is called instead Expert en Seduction? This is hugely important to understanding the future of Europe.
Update: Insulting your readers is never a good tactic, but so many of this site’s visitors today are first-timers (and, probably, last-timers) that I thought I’d point one thing out to the apparently illiterate commenters who think that I’m “rationalizing” my supposed position on this memo: I didn’t learn about this story for about a week after it broke. I read perhaps six blog posts during the last month. I had no “position” on this story. I’m also stunned by the number of people who have excessively criticized Josh–who actually interviewed people, researched his story, and made clear his reservations awhen necessary (and made very public corrections as events warranted). He’s done actual work on this story, which is far more than nearly everyone on both sides of this issue can claim.
50 Responses to “That Memo, and a Question”
The man stepped down from his job. Obviously the memo mattered. He no longer has a job.. kaput, finito, unemployed.
Lawsy you. Tell your children what you want. Many Americans feel otherwise…
GOP’s moral agenda doubted (USA TODAY)
You can’t have it both ways… if you argue that the memo doesn’t matter then why would Democrats forge such a memo??
Frankly, how should I value your “guarantees” about similar memos? You were wrong about your belief about this memo being forged.. why should I value your opinion that Democrats wrote similar cynical memos that weren’t revealed??
1) I wasn’t even aware of this story until a week afterward (I was in Germany when the story broke, and in the former Yugoslavia for the next several days–and I wasn’t checking this site, or any blog, regularly at that point).
2) What I feel and what the American people feel are two obviously different things, else “country and western” music would not exist in its current form.
3) Any staffer who embarrasses his boss is fired. Not too difficult to grasp.
Did you really delete my last post? That’s weird, but very right-wing bloglike. I even actually complimented you.
Anyway, maybe you should acknowledge that Martinez has passed the buck before and it most likely is not a benign coincidence.
“Mel Martinez has used this excuse before.
During his Senate primary, his campaign attacked conservative former congressman Bill McCollum as being pro-gay because he voted for the hate crimes legislation, and they “outed” a McCollum staffer. Martinez said his staff did the attack and that he knew nothing about it.
During the general election campaign produced ads against Betty Castor calling her a terrorist because of an issue that happened while she was at USF. Again he said that his staff produce the ads and that he knew nothing about it.
Now is passing around memos that he supposedly knew nothing about?? Please.
This guy is liar.”
So *if* the memo is innocuous, why were you accusing Democrats of making it up as a smear? It’s only when it is definitively sourced to the Rep who was the Republicans’ point man on the issue that you suddenly decide that its contents are quite OK.
Hint to visitors from KOS or elsewhere, ITA has, at current count, 6 bloggers. None of them with identical views, opinions, writing styles, or names.
Also, we don’t delete comments unless they’re needlessly offensive, defamatory, or otherwise beyond the pale for political debate. Tom probably clicked “preview” instead of post, put in the wrong security code, or something else.
Actually, in this case, it was needlessly offensive. The “compliment” involved not calling me as stupid as a box of rocks. And he didn’t even say what kind of rocks!
Paul, you’d have done better to stop after the first sentence. It is all tripe after that.
I see so much rationalizing by the right in the last twenty-four hours. I suppose some simply can’t admit when they are wrong.
Obviously there are several writers on the blog. And of course there can be differences of opinion among them.
But the writer in question seems incapable of doing the right thing in this case.
Mainly, admitting error and perhaps swallowing a little crow.
As for this attempt at obfuscation.
” guarantee you that similar memos are handed out by Democratic staffers whenever similar bills are on the floor”
What similar bills? Similar to the Schiavo bill? I can’t think of any.
All the choking on crow at these sites sounds about the same, whether here, or Powercrap, or wherever. We’ve somehow gone from “This stinks of a Democrat forgery and this matters!!! We’ll get to the bottom of this.” To “oh, it was real. *yawn* Typical memo. I’m sure the other side does it.” Followed by some weird tangential riffing on how this all is still an example of persecution of Republicans or indications of Liberal Media Bias.
T, I’m confused. Perhaps you’re reading someone else’s blog posts, but Josh has been upfront and honest with retractions and corrections, and I don’t recall mentioning the liberal media. And my impression is that, yes, just about every politician does make a political calculation when deciding on what course of action to take. (Consider, for instance, John Kerry’s votes on the Iraq wars, or Senator X’s votes on Issue Y.) The difference is that usually they’re smart enough to either not put them on paper or to at least not let other people see those papers….
Josh should absolutely be commended for retractions and corrections. These aren’t always so easy–well done.
That said, Paul, the problem with this memo stuff isn’t that the Republicans were trying to use the issue of Mrs. Schiavo for political gain–not to my mind, at least. As you said, political calculation is political reality. The problem is that the right-leaning blogs pushed the ‘Second RatherGate’ notion into the MSM, who accepted that charaterization fairly completely … without any evidence.
That’s no even a problem with the right-leaning blogs, to my mind. They’re partisan: good for them. But the MSM should be ashamed.
At least Paul admitted he deleted the comment. All I did was ape your disingenuous “Lawsy me” nonsense, as if crassly exploiting such a sad situation was normal, every day, acceptable politics. Oh, and your ridiculous “guarantee”.
And there was no mention of rocks in my original statement whatsoever. In reference to your “whenever similar bills are on the floor”, I simply said that you weren’t stupid, so stop pretending to be. I stand by that. If you’re offended by people pointing out your obvious disingenuousness, don’t do it.
Maybe we’re on a shorter fuse around here today. But, Tom, your comments are coming across pretty consistently as near or over the line. Brad DeLong, I believe, would have deleted your comment as well–and I would have no problem with that.
“The problem is that the right-leaning blogs pushed the ‘Second RatherGate’ notion into the MSM, who accepted that charaterization fairly completely … without any evidence.”
This is a more intelligent argument than most I’ve heard. I would like to reiterate that, aside from a handful of posts on this site, MichelleMalkin, Kos, and maybe one or two others, I know almost nothing about this story or its play in the MSM. So this could be true, I really don’t know.
“The problem is that the right-leaning blogs pushed the ‘Second RatherGate’ notion”
I would say that the real issue wasn’t even that but that when asked directly about it some of our elected officials lied.
I don’t care what your party affiliation is, no American politician should be permitted to lie to the voters. Even worse that it should be over something so insignificant.
Remember it wasn’t about sex.
Saying the staffer was tone deaf because the polls showed overwhelming objection to COngressional action is wrong. The staffer never claimed in the memo that this issue polled well nationally, he simply said it would excite the pro-life base and that it would put Nelson — a Dem Sen in a red state who is up for reelect — in a toughh political position.
Actually I read the multiple posts linked to in Josh’s post, as well as his post. And for all collectively it seems to be “PAY ATTENTION! BIG IMPORTANT DEAL! (we think it’s a forgery)–”I mean, politics as usual, much ado about nothing” (I’ll be damned, the memo was real).
Paul,
You come late into this debate and you don’t offer any new information, any original insights or any fresh argument that hasn’t been tossed out there many times already. This is why I said you should have not turned your first sentence into yet another “yes, but.”
You simply didn’t add anything useful. Are you so sensitive that having that called “tripe” seems beyond the pale to you? I’d like to know for future reference, so I can know whether to pay *any* respectful attention to you, such as Joshua has earned. If it’s out of bounds for you, I will pay attention elsewhere.
(I will admit that *my* own comment had no apparent value either, which is why I am expounding at length here to describe the value behind the intent.)
I can’t understand how I’m coming across as near or over the line, but if that’s the standard for this site, I apologize. I guess there’s just some frustration at the attempt to have a halfway logical debate that never quite gets there.
I don’t think it matters how involved you’ve been in this case, you hopefully read about it in some detail before deciding to write a 5 paragraph post (some would call a “position”). And in your post, you are actually “rationalizing” away most of the unseemly aspects of this story. (It is possible to rationalize about someone else’s position by the way.) One major point that has been pointed out above. Martinez most likely lied about this and has done so numerous times in the past in very similar situations. It’s crazy that people (not you) would cook up conspiracy theories rather than believe that someone on their side actually lied.
I hope to continue reading your blog.
Or should that be “intent behind the value?”
In any event, the previously referenced “tripe” comment was mine–I regret not getting my moniker attached to it.
I’d also like to here, somewhere, anywhere, take the opportunity to say that Joshua has now twice in the past week acted in an extremely honorable fashion (and is an example of why to me, anyway, IU-PU contests of any nature have always been well-met matches between worthy opponents. And that includes the debate teams.)
Further, I don’t know if it has struck anyone else, but in trying to deflect all negative attention to Joshua, Ms. Malkin’s actions are *not* those of an honorable soul. She is not blameless and she gathers additional blame with each new accusatory excuse. The more she bails by trying to throw others overboard, the more ridiculous she appears.
The GOP made it a big deal, I think. They were (totally disingenuously) trying to act like politics had nothing to do with politics, which was clearly jibberish.
Had some not started shrieking about dirty tricks and just been like, “yeah, there’s politics in this. duh.”
…then this woulda been no been no biggie (back from work….brain fried)
This is so fascinating to me. Thousands of people stream in from Kos today–only to find Paul, who is offering a non-partisan and actually quite critical second-guessing of everyone’s investment in the flap-of-the-day.
Paul, I invite you to browse the comments I was leaving here when the story first broke. “Josh,” I said, “You’re barking up the wrong tree. I can’t see why anyone cares about this.”
Frankly, I feel more vindicated by this post–and by the ridiculous reaction to it–than anything I’ve seen in the matter to date (including the many apologies). A smart, independent observer took one look at the situation and came to the same conclusion I did.
Oh my… I’m patting myself on the back. I’ll stop now…
I love the part where you say “if anyone’s offended by this [memo], they should go back to high school civics class and stay the heck away from real life”
Ha. Catching up on your reading, you’ll see Tom Delay quoted on this blog on 3/26/05 saying the memo is “disgusting.”
I’d agree Tom Delay needs remedial civics and to stay away from real life.
[Lawsy me! Those Senators are talkin' about politics agin! Golly, Ma, what'll we tell the children?]
If it had been a Democrat who circulated a memo that referred to a similar topic as a “great political issue,” would you be equally as forgiving as you are here?
Incredible – you spin a ridiculous theory that the Democrats planted the memo as a dirty trick… and now that your conspiracy theory is proven wrong, you say the memo isn’t bad after all. Why should anyone take you seriously?
You obviously just take the events and spin it in the most convenient way you can – if the memo is bad, the Democrats must have done it, but now that we know it came from the GOP, why, it isn’t bad at all!
It doesn’t take a genius to cherry pick stories from the internet and make up a conspiracy. Just a moron with time on his hands.
You failed.
Time to go back to writing buy and sell ads for the local.
The reason it’s a big deal that politicians were politicking in this case is that they SWORE up and down that it was all about the LIFE of this woman. If her life was a “great political issue” and not a “great LIFE” it makes Martinez (and DeLay and some others) viscious jerks for scoring points on her family’s most difficult decision. PLaying politics with tax cuts is one thing… playing politics with Jane R. ______ and her husband’s interpretation of her last sihes is A BIT different… unless you’re a poltical hack doing desperate post-hoc rationalization.
it should be “her last wishes” my bad.
Now I’m interested in Josh’s previous post which had the following:
Any repercussions for these apparently false denials? Or did Drudge and/or the Washington Times engage in some fabrication. And, if so, will Drudge and the Washington Times now be shunned and mocked by right wing bloggers in the manner of Dan Rather?
“The problem is that the right-leaning blogs pushed the ‘Second RatherGate’ notion into the MSM…”
Actually, that’s not true. Some blogs certainly promoted that idea. (Although until he got a bogus tip pointing to Sen. Reid’s office, Josh was careful to that it could be either a forged memo or an incredibly sloppy aide acting alone.) But ABC and the WaPo had to be dragged kicking and screaming into even admitting that their initial reporting was not completely accurate. I am unaware of any mentions in the MSM that the memo might be a dirty trick. If anyone knows of any, by all means post them.
The Democrats are off the hook in this case, but the fact remains that ABC and the WaPo misrepresented a memo written up by a single staffer as being some sort of official GOP strategy document. In doing so, they played right into the Dems’ hands.
Well, I stand partially corrected. The Washington Times printed a story asking whether the memo was fake. Inasmuch as the Times is considered part of the MSM, the “Memogate II” story made it into the mainstream. Of course, most liberals openly scoff at the Times as being a right-wing rag, so it would be rather odd for liberals to say that constitutes mainstream coverage.
Sourced lied to a writer on this blog, anonymously. Anonymous sources lose protection when it turns out they were knowlingly lying. Where are the names of these so called Senate Staffers who saw Reid’s assistant distribute the memos. Name names.
It’s not that the memo is innocuous. It just doesn’t multiply the crime much. The GOP agenda on Schiavo was obvious from the start. Is anyone really surprised that their decision to intervene was politically motivated? So some idiot wrote it down. Sucks for him, but we certainly didn’t glean anything from the memo that we didn’t already know.
Yes! You’ve got it exactly! Democrats shouldn’t be outraged about the memo per se but about the whole affair–and, of course, now they can be outraged about the fortnight of bloggish warfare over the memo’s authenticity. But the memo as a text is not tremendously significant.
“misrepresented a memo written up by a single staffer as being some sort of official GOP strategy document”
Sorry, that’s nonsense. The “single staffer” was Martinez’s chief legal counsel, someone who has worked for other senators, who has ties to DeLay, and someone who Martinez himself described as “a senior member of my staff.”
As for Martinez, he was the sponsor of the bill, and he handed the memo to another senator, on the floor of the senate. So yes indeed, typos and all, this memo was “some sort of official GOP strategy document.”
The fact that wonky people here knew the GOP agenda was crassly political doesn’t mean that your average joe extremist from the pro-life base knew it. There are a lot of people who believe the crap the GOP feeds them, so it’s important to show the public when it’s being blatantly lied to, especially on such a divisive issue.
Jukebox, that’s spin and you know it. It doesn’t matter what connections the guy has. ABC and WaPo clearly represented the memo as a either a top-down communication or something which the entire party had agreed to, or both. It is clearly neither.
And, Tom, it would be just as valid for me to say…
“The fact that wonky people here knew the Democratic agenda was crassly political doesn’t mean that your average joe extremist from the pro-choice [or pro-gay marriage, pro-union, ACLU member, etc.] base knew it. There are a lot of people who believe the crap the Democratic party feeds them, so it’s important to show the public when it’s being blatantly lied to, especially on such a divisive issue.
Eric, yes you could say that. And you – and I – should when the need comes up during an equally manipulative and cynical abuse of power from the left.
But using that statement as an excuse for current bad behavior is a logical fallacy. And please let us know the next time someone like Randall Terry (who the MSM and GOP both accepted with open arms) comes out of the ACLU offices and talks about taking over the country. I have a relative that uses this argument all the time. There is just no historical precedent for environmental or civil rights groups effectively trying to dominate governments and people. Religious extremism, on the other hand, has a rather long and well documented history of violence and oppression for you to review.
Says Rabdall Terry – “I want you to just let a wave of intolerance wash over you… I want you to let a wave of hatred wash over you. Yes, hate is good… Our goal is a Christian nation. We have a biblical duty, we are called by God, to conquer this country. We don’t want equal time. We don’t want pluralism.”
But using that statement as an excuse for current bad behavior is a logical fallacy.
I am making no excuses for anyone. Anyone who considered the Schiavo case *primarily* for its political utility is beneath contempt, in my opinion. The fallacy that liberals are to this moment trying to push on this thread and elsewhere is one of guilt by association. For the vast majority of Senators, there is no reason to believe they were not acting out of sincere outrage over what was happening to Terri Schiavo.
Of course, most liberals openly scoff at the Times as being a right-wing rag, so it would be rather odd for liberals to say that constitutes mainstream coverage.
This is sort of disingenous. Many, many conservatives openly scoff at the New York Times as being a left-wing rag. Are you saying it’s therefore wrong for them to consider the NYT as mainstream?!?
“ABC and WaPo clearly represented the memo as a either a top-down communication or something which the entire party had agreed to, or both.”
You’re stretching. No one used terms like “top-down” or “the entire party.” They said the source was “Republican officials” and “party leaders.” Brian Darling is definitely a “Republican official” and Martinez is definitely a “party leader,” at least as far as this bill is concerned. Therefore the press statements on the memo were fair and reasonable, notwithstanding a lot of whining from folks like Power Line, who are desperate to direct attention away from their own lies and bogus conspiracy theories.
“It is clearly neither.”
You’re not in a position to make that claim. Let me point out what you’re overlooking, which should be obvious: you’re not in a position to claim that Bill Frist wasn’t personally involved in creating this memo and distributing it to every single Republican senator. This exact claim, which no one in the mainstream press has made (as far as I know), has not been proven true, but it has also not been proven false. All you have to claim otherwise is that there have been denials. Then again, Martinez and his office also vehemently denied having anything to do with the memo. Why should the other Republican denials be treated as more credible than Martinez’s hollow denials?
A double standard is being attempted. Power Line et al were quite willing to treat the Democrats as guilty until proven innocent. Now that the shoe is on the other foot, there’s a lot of shamelessly hypocritical complaining that the press accusations went beyond what was warranted by the facts (as if that’s not exactly what the righty blogs had themselves been doing for two weeks; if Power Line thinks it’s good to be careful about making false accusations, they should start by setting a better example). But the accusations made in the press are indeed supported by the facts.
Eric, I’m glad you agree that the behavior is beneath contempt. And it might be guilt by associtation except for the fact that regardless of his freshman status that’s always touted, Martinez was the GOP point man on this issue, was the sponsor of the Bill, and he has very strong ties to the Bush/Rove machine. Not to mention that he’s a trial lawyer!!! OMG!!! Then there’s the matter that the author of the memo, who was his chief legal counsel and not some low level staffer, has ties to DeLay and Co.
Of course Republican congressman are going to deny they’ve seen it. That doesn’t mean you should believe them outright. In fact, other Republican aids have already stated to Mike Allen that they did in fact receive and see the memo.
I said:
“Of course, most liberals openly scoff at the [Washington] Times as being a right-wing rag, so it would be rather odd for liberals to say that constitutes mainstream coverage.”
Jesse said:
“This is sort of disingenous. Many, many conservatives openly scoff at the New York Times as being a left-wing rag.”
Many consider it to have an out-of-control liberal bias, yes. But I know few who would say of a certain fact “I won’t believe that until I see it somewhere other than the NYT.” And, of course, no one would deny that the NYT is a member of the MSM.
So what I’m saying is if liberals are considering the Washington Times a member of the MSM in this case, I expect you to have a corresponding level of respect the next time they report facts that are damaging to Democrats or other liberal figures.
(For the record, I consider the Washington Times as being on the fringe of the mainstream. If they were the only ones reporting a certain claim of fact, I would take it with a little grain of salt.)
“Yes! You’ve got it exactly! Democrats shouldn’t be outraged about the memo per se but about the whole affair–and, of course, now they can be outraged about the fortnight of bloggish warfare over the memo’s authenticity. But the memo as a text is not tremendously significant.”
I absolutely agree. What created all the memo-specific fuss in the blogosphere was the rightie side cranking up to try to Rathericize the memo away. (Unless one counts the Washington Times and Howie Kurtz’s blog as parts of the MSM, it really didn’t get much play in the MSM.) If they hadn’t commented on it, or said something like what you said earlier here — i.e., that everyone does politics, and the Dems surely have their own, etc. — then probably not much would have come of it all. I think the VRWC was perhaps desperate to have a change of topic, since they were getting hammered pretty badly for the overall high level of awfulness of their handling of Schiavo; it is remarkable how they managed to somehow find a set of actions that made everybody, from the core de la core to the squishiest of the moderates, unhappy with them.
And to the commenters upstream giving Paul all sorts of weird hell for his post: huh?
If the memo was handed over in “accident” and not distributed, then why did I hear right wing pundants on t.v. actually using the talking points from the memo?
Ah yes, the ‘democratcs do it to so it’s ok’ defense. Look, I have no illusions about politics on capital hill, but it makes you look like a partisan hack when you excuse this behaviour. Do you think Tom Delay would be campaigning so fiercly against ‘activist judges’ if it weren’t for the fact that his ethical lapses are under such scrutiny?
What on earth does Tom DeLay’s orgy of yuckiness have to do with whether or not a memo like this should be viewed as scandalous or not?