Martinez's office wrote Schiavo memo

This comes via Daily Kos:

So, after repeated attempts by Republicans (mostly Republican bloggers) to blame Democrats for the Schiavo memo - the one that argued the GOP would reap great rewards by meddling in another family's business - the real author has stepped forward.

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

Martinez said he earlier had been assured by aides that his office had nothing to do with producing the memo. "I never did an investigation, as such," he said. "I just took it for granted that we wouldn't be that stupid. It was never my intention to in any way politicize this issue."

Well, well, well.

So the memo was real indeed - that certainly hurts the conspiracy theorists from Powerline and other blogs who thought our side had made it up:

Conservative Web logs have challenged the authenticity of the memo, in some cases likening it to the discredited documents about Bush's National Guard service that CBS News reported last fall.

So can we expect any retractions and mea culpas to follow? Kos doesn't think so, and neither do I.