Busted!

Yes Virginia, there is a Santa Claus. And yes, my fellow Americans, there is a 'Schiavo talking points memo.' In fact, it came from Brian Darling, a high-ranking staffer in Mel Martinez's office, the freshman Senator from Florida.

The Memo stating that Republican should make political hay from Terri Schiavo's very unfortunate situation is NOT a forgery. I repeat NOT a forgery, despite what all the conservative pundits said. AmericaBlog has a nice compilation of a lot of them.

Here are some of favorites:

1. Rush Limbaugh: (not a blogger, but I had to add this blowhard):
"Truth Detector: Supposed GOP Schiavo Memo Forged by Democrats."

2. Michelle Malkin:
I suspect that no one at the Post or ABC News still believes the amateurish, unsigned, misspelled memo was circulated by Republican Party leaders..... Will ABC News officials continue to stonewall, as Dan Rather et al. so famously did just a few months ago? Or will they come clean and promptly issue a correction?

3. Powerline blog:
We have written extensively about the fake "talking points memo" on the Schaivo case that ABC News and the Washington Post publicized, beginning on March 18. We have pointed out, most comprehensively in the Weekly Standard, that there is no reason whatsoever to believe that the memo originated with the Republicans, and considerable reason to think it may be a Democratic dirty trick....

4. Tucker Carlson on Chris Matthews' show:

"Last week a memo surfaced, reportedly written by the Republican members of Congress explaining how to make hay with the Terri Schiavo case, the Talking Points Memo, Ah, I think within a week or two it will become clear that that memo was a forgery, possibly written by Democrats on the hill in an effort to discredit Republicans. Bloggers are saying that now and it sounds like they may be right."

Yes, Rush and Michelle and Tucker and Hindrocket, the truth will set you free!