The Great Mel Martinez Dust-Up of 2005

[Note: I had a much more involved version of this prepared for publication yesterday, but Blogger ate it. That’ll teach me.]

With all that’s been going on in the world, this story frankly flew right beneath my radar; but it appears that the media is making a big deal of it now that the author of the infamous memo has been revealed as a lawyer in Sen. Mel Martinez’s (R-FL) office. There seems to be a bit of glee in the coverage of this, insofar as some right-wing bloggers have impugned the authenticity of the memo, suspecting a Democrat “dirty trick.” Now that this line of reasoning has been discredited, has the mainstream news establishment regained something of what it lost in the Rathergate fiasco?

Several points occur to me:

• I’ve read the memo, and it doesn’t strike me as that bad. Certainly not the most flattering thing for the GOP, but the only real problem I see is the “great political issue” bit, which does undermine claims that the Congressional intervention in the Schiavo matter was not strictly motivated by principle. The rest of the sentiments, even the “Ted Bundy” bit, are quite in line with other public Republican pronouncements on the matter.
  
• Sen. Frank Lautenberg (D-NJ) has called for an investigation into the matter, saying, “Those who would attempt to influence debate in the United States Senate should not hide behind anonymous pieces of paper.” Uh, maybe I’m missing something here, but what part of the case is illegal or even unethical? Aren’t such “talking point” papers prepared by both sides, every day, for every issue? This, and Martinez’s Sergeant-Schultz reaction, are political in nature: the GOP is embarrassed that it is seen to be playing politics, and the Dems smell blood in the water.
  
• But the outrage in other quarters is more difficult to fathom. Gasp! Our politicians have been caught red-handed…playing politics, of all things!
  

And should the mainstream media be reveling? So elements in the blogging community jumped the gun in calling the document a fake. You are the mainstream media—you have a lot more to explain on Rathergate than a few conspiracy theorists have to explain for this.