[This post originally appeared at Lean Left, a general-issues blog KTK also contributes to. The founders of Lean Left graciously allowed me to re-post it here to bring all my health-related posts into one place. Original posting: 4/8/2005]

Wonkette’s butt-boy Greg Beato nails Mel Martinez today on his attempts to duck responsibility for the “Schiavo memo” distributed by his office. It turns out that he habitually issues inflammatory and offensive statements, then blames them on unnamed staffers.

Democratic operatives inform us that the Magical Mystery Memo is not the first document to emerge from the coven of Mel Martinez via apparent supernatural forces. In August 2004, after his campaign funded a flier that called his GOP opponent “the new darling of the homosexual extremists,” Martinez offered a scary glimpse at his life as Satan’s plaything: “Words were used that were not mine, and were not of my choosing. Those words were spoken by others.” A couple months later, when a campaign statement of his likened federal agents to “armed thugs,” Martinez said he wasn’t responsible for that statement either —it was the diabolical handiwork of “someone writing for the campaign.” Would someone please rescue this man before his head starts spinning like a top?

He also notes that the GOP has been downplaying Martinez’s role in its strategy of politicizing the Schiavo case, when in fact Martinez was a prime move in the legislative effort to push the case into federal court, and actually wrote the bill seeking to do so:

The accuracrats over at Media Matters are making a big fuss over all the conservative pundits who swore the Magical Mystery Memo was drafted by a Democrat. But were Rush and Bill Bennett and all the others really so wrong? After all, Mel Martinez went from GOP point man on the Schiavo intervention to “freshman Republican Senator” pretty seamlessly. By sunrise, we’re thinking he might be demoted to “Democrat.”

Good blogging, butt boy.

This is all too typical of the GOP, however. It seems to be a matter of principle with them that nobody is ever responsible for anything, nobody ever bears the consequences of their own mendacity, corruption, or just plain lack of moral fibre. Being a Republican office-holder means never having to say you’re sorry.