Always Make War by Proxy

Published on April 7, 2005

So apparently the memo — the error-riddled one outlining GOP “talking points” for cashing in on the Terry Schiavo controversy with pro-life voters — was real, with the caveats that the “working draft” was never meant to be printed by Sen. Mel Martinez’s legal counsel, Brian Darling (who resigned yesterday), and was never read by […]

So apparently the memo — the error-riddled one outlining GOP “talking points” for cashing in on the Terry Schiavo controversy with pro-life voters — was real, with the caveats that the “working draft” was never meant to be printed by Sen. Mel Martinez’s legal counsel, Brian Darling (who resigned yesterday), and was never read by Martinez before the senator accidentally passed it on to Senator Tom Harkin, after which it found its way to the press. As smoking guns go, this one does seem to fit the bill, but it seems to a rather obvious point: Are there really any Mr. Smiths left in America who don’t believe that politicians act out of self-interest? In the public senatorial hand-wringing that followed yesterday’s news — all agree it’s a “perplexing” case — an almost as-obvious, but surprisingly candid, observation came from Sen. Orrin Hatch (R-Utah), who told interviewers that the Schiavo case reached the pitch it did because it was a proxy for the “‘other ugly political conversation'”: that is, abortion.

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