Who Is Brian Darling?

Is Brian Darling the designated fall guy for Senator Mel Martinez? Martinez "resigned" his chief counsel, Brian Darling, for authoring the G.O.P. talking points memo on Terri Schiavo that somehow found its way into Martinez's hands without Martinez's knowledge. (Who said miracles don't happen?)

Darling graduated from the New England School of Law in 1996. He was formerly employed as counsel for New Hampshire Senator Bob Smith, the senator who thought the G.O.P. wasn't far enough to the right.

In 2000, Bri and Bob visited little Elian. Bri also worked for the Bush-Cheney recount team.

In 2004, he was a partner in the lobbying firm the Alexander Strategy Group. (See also here and here.)

The Alexander Strategy Group founded by the Texan Bug Chaser's spiritual advisor, Ed Buckham.

This Alexander Strategy Group and this Ed Buckham:

Enron was ASG's biggest client; they received at least $411,000 from Enron between 1999 and 2001. Ed Buckham and ASG were involved with a "secret 'grassroots' campaign -- spearheaded by Enron -- to deregulate energy markets... An outline for the plan was faxed to Tom DeLay's Washington office. It was printed on Alexander Strategy letterhead complete with Ed Buckham's name in print. The only problem was that Alexander Strategy's CEO was still in the employ of the federal government at the time... Alexander Strategy Group was, as Enron promised, awarded the $750,000 contract to drum up support for electric power deregulation -- a goal that Enron believed would open the $300 billion a year electric markets to Enron. The stealth campaign would operate out of an energy consortium dubbed, 'Americans for Affordable Electricity' -- a name that Californians would find bitterly ironic just three years later."

According to Time magazine, Buckham was DeLay's Jack Abramoff connection.

My guess is that Brian Darling will be very, very quiet about his role in the circulating the G.O.P. memo, and will find himself again in a comfortable position in the right-wing lobbying machine very, very soon. If he knows what's good for him.