Plausible deniability

We finally know who wrote the infamous memo that called the Terri Schiavo case "a great political issue" for Republicans.

Courtesy of loyal blog reader J.B.G., who provided the update in the comments on a previous post, we learn that Brian Darling, legal counsel to U.S. Sen. Mel Martinez, R-Fla., admitted today that he drafted the document. Martinez immediately accepted Darling's resignation, The Washington Post reported.

Martinez, a freshman senator from Schiavo's home state, asserted that he never read the memo, that he doesn't know how he obtained it, and that he passed it on inadvertently to U.S. Sen. Tom Harkin, D-Iowa. If that CYA theory doesn't do the trick for you, you can go with Harkin's account, in which Martinez handed him the memo and referred to it as "talking points -- something that we're working on here."

Though this story further confirms the Schiavo memo's existence and authorship by a Republican staffer, it leaves unanswered a more disturbing question: Is this memo an aberration, or does it reflect how GOP congressional leaders think?