Wild Man Martinez

For a freshman senator, Mel Martinez (R-FL) is sure in the mix of things. First a senior staffer of his writes the Schiavo memo saying that the issue was "a great one" for Republicans. Now he's suggesting that the US close down Gitmo:

KEY WEST, Fla. -- Sen. Mel Martinez said the Bush administration should consider closing the Guantanamo Bay prison for terrorism suspects -- the first high-profile Republican to make the suggestion.

"It's become an icon for bad stories and at some point you wonder the cost-benefit ratio," Martinez said Friday. "How much do you get out of having that facility there? Is it serving all the purposes you thought it would serve when initially you began it, or can this be done some other way a little better?"

Boy, Sen. Martinez has sure become an embarrassment to his party by shooting his mouth off. Do you think "mainstream" Republicans will have to answer for his claims. Will they be lined up on Meet the Press and asked "What do YOU think of en. Martinez' comments? Have they hurt your party?"

Oh wait, I forgot, It's OK If You're A Republican (or IOKIYAR, a term whose meaning I didn't know for the longest time).

The point is that Martinez clearly speaks his mind, whatever side of the issue he's on, and that's OK for GOP leaders to do. It's clearly not OK for the chairman of the DNC (at least to the Beltway pundit class).

...in a related note, Digby caught this, and I can't believe I didn't, but this line that Judy Woodruff said on MTP Sunday was fascinating:

Woodruff pointed out that the Republicans have wisely learned to throw their red meat "below the radar" -- through the local news and direct mail ---while the Democrats haven't. No comment on why the Republican red meat remains "below the radar" when the creme de la creme of Washington punditry clearly knows all about it. Nor was there any speculation about how it came to pass that Dean's comments dominated the cable news networks with an obsessive glee usually reserved for Bill Clinton's pants, while Tom Delay can put out a hit on federal judges and it gets a one minute segment betwen the blog report and Bay Buchanan.

Since the press IS the frickin' radar, to say that the GOP smartly flies below it is absurd. Not only that, the famed "vote or the Democrats will ban the Bible" flyer did get mentioned during campaign season, albeit (as Digby rightly points out) with little fanfare compared to the Dean brouhaha.

I think the point Woodruff had no idea she was making was that the Republican direct mail and whisper campaigns are anonymous, while Dean comes out and says what he's thinking. Isn't it a marvelous political climate we live in to know that making crazy statements anonymously is considered genius, while speaking out in the open is to be derided? Of course the bullshit here is that the media knows exactly where these "under the radar" things are coming from, yet they take top Republican operatives' plausible deniability on faith, and never, ever try to connect the dots. Clearly Woodruff and the Beltway kool kidz are saying that the DNC should send out unsigned mailers claiming that Republicans will put Jews in ghettos and return blacks to plantations. That would be the "smart" thing to do.