Another conspiracy debunked

I'm sure all of blogostan (the Right side of the blogosphere) is gearing up to apologize for accusing Democrats of dirty tricks and creating the now infamous talking points memo that said that Congressional Republicans would gain politically from jumping on the Schiavo case. For one thing, although there didn't seem to be any controversy over whether it was written on an IBM Selectric or not, it did lack a letterhead and contained numerous tell-tale mispellings (members of God's Own Party are, you know, infallible).

And after all, Republicans are such upstanding people, they would never (at least openly) claim that they are advancing legislation for anything other than principle.

Um, except they did.

The legal counsel to Sen. Mel Martinez (R-Fla.) admitted yesterday that he was the author of a memo citing the political advantage to Republicans of intervening in the case of Terri Schiavo, the senator said in an interview last night.

Brian H. Darling, 39, a former lobbyist for the Alexander Strategy Group on gun rights and other issues, offered his resignation and it was immediately accepted, Martinez said.

Well, as for those apologies, I guess I shouldn't hold my breadth. On the contrary (via Atrios), good ol' Hindrocket is still beating the media conspiracy drum.