The American Spectator

Washington Prowler

(Page 2 of 2)

Some Republicans now believe that it was Reid who tipped off the media about the memo's existence, and that the media went to Harkin and his staff. At one point, the Washington Post could not provide an original copy of the memo, perhaps because while it had been told about it, it had not yet received a copy.

While it is clear that the Martinez office was the source of the memo, questions remain. For example, Why, when it now is clear that the Washington Post and ABC News both got tipped to the memo by Democrats, did both initially report that the memo was being handed out by Republican leaders to Republicans?

"By now, the press ought to know that Reid will say just about anything to get what he wants, and Harkin is no better," says a Republican leadership staffer. "People forget that Harkin might have been right on Schiavo, but he is not above getting down in the trenches and playing dirty for his party."

p> CHOPPER CHUCK br> Why was Sen. Charles Schumer so public in his attack on fellow Democrat Sen. Chris Dodd 's attempt to steal a $6.1 billion Marine One helicopter contract from a New York State defense contractor? Because Schumer was feeling pinched by Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton . /p>

For decades, Connecticut-based Sikorsky was the builder of the President's helicopter, Marine One. But Lockheed recently won the contract to build the new version of the helicopter. The new Marine One will be built at a plant in upstate New York, and stands to create almost 1,000 new jobs.

Schumer, though, angered Lockheed and upstate Democrats when word leaked out that he had not been interested in attending the announcement for the contract award out of concern for public backlash if Lockheed lost the bid to Sikorsky. Neither he, nor Republican Governor George Pataki, expressed interest in attending the announcement with Lockheed employees at the upstate Oswego plant.

Senator Clinton, on the other hand, told Lockheed she would join employees at the plant regardless of the good or bad news. "Schumer found himself outflanked again by Clinton," says a Democratic staffer. "He initially didn't make the effort with this issue, and now he's playing catch up."

Dodd attempted to shift the funding for the Marine One back to Sikorsky through an amendment on a foreign spending bill last week. Dodd's amendment would have barred any companies with ties to terrorist-sponsoring states from producing components for Marine One. Lockheed has several European partners in the Marine One project, including at least one that had done some business with Iran in the past. Schumer blocked the Dodd amendment by putting a hold on the entire piece of legislation. He then promptly held a press conference and his staff sent out more than 300 press releases to local New York media outlets.

topics:
Harry Reid, Business, Iran, NATO