If you’ve listened to right-wing talk radio (or even the McLaughlin Group) lately, all the GOP-paid commentators have been spreading the claim that the infamous Schiavo GOP memo passed around on the Senate floor was a fake, typed up and released by some Democratic Party operative. After all, they said, who else would misspell so many words and try to make it look like the Republicans are not only opportunists, but uneducated as well?

So who actually did write the memo? The Washington Post has the whole story, and it doesn’t look good for the GOP. Turns out a legal counsel for Florida Republican Senator Mel Martinez wrote the memo. Martinez initially stated that he did not read the memo, but did admit that “he inadvertently passed it to Sen. Tom Harkin (D-Iowa), who had worked with him on the [Schiavo case].”

And while Martinez himself may not have written the article, it was culled from statements that he, himself, made to his general counsel regarding his views on the issue.

So the next time the Republicans go screaming about how they’re being mischaracterized by Democrats, please remember this line, presumably spoken by Senator Mel Martinez to his general counsel, regarding an issue where a family’s plight was seized upon for political purposes:

“This is a great political issue, because Senator Nelson of Florida has already refused to become a cosponsor and this is a tough issue for Democrats.”