HARKIN AND HARRY
Late last week a staffer for Sen. Mel Martinez
admitted to being the author of the infamous Terri Schiavo “talking
points memo.” Senator Martinez also reported late last week that he
handed a copy of the memo to Sen. Tom Harkin.
Martinez says that Harkin was the only person to whom he gave a
copy of the memo. That memo, which gained a great deal of attention
after a Senate source handed the document over to both the
Washington Post and ABC News, was initially thought to be
a Democratic dirty trick.
The Prowler reported
two weeks ago that Senate Republican leadership staffers had traced
the memo to the opposition research office of Democratic Senate
leaders Harry Reid, where they believed Democratic
staffers had taken a set of talking points posted on the website of
the Traditional Values Coalition and created the memo from those
talking points. It appeared that the TVC had shaped those talking
points from a March 8 press release from the office of Sen.
Martinez.
Now, it appears the Martinez staffer used the March 8 press
release (which remains posted on the Senator’s website), as the basis for the talking points
memo that Martinez handed off to Senator Harkin. Martinez claims he
did so unaware of the political strategy in the memo, and because
he’d been working with Harkin on saving Schiavo.
Harkin has been silent about his role in the “talking points
memo” controversy, though a staffer in his Washington office late
Friday denied that his boss could have been the source for the
Washington Post and ABC News. “He hasn’t said anything,
but he wasn’t working against Senator Martinez on this one. I can’t
believe he would leak the memo, particularly at the stage of the
debate when he got the memo, which would have been before the floor
vote.”
He may not have leaked the memo, but he at least went to Sen.
Harry Reid about it. According to a Reid leadership source, Harkin
gave Reid a heads-up about the memo, telling him about the
language, as well as the ham-handed language about how the Schiavo
controversy could be a political boon to Republicans. It isn’t
clear that Harkin gave Reid a copy.
“Reid knew about the memo. He talked about its existence with
staff,” says the Democratic leadership staffer. “I don’t know that
he had a copy on March 18th, when this thing started erupting, but
Reid was consulted about it.”
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.”
CHOPPER CHUCK
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.
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.
