Thursday, November 13, 2003

Blabathon

The Republicans really look like a bunch of whiners, judging by the Newshour coverage of it.

Here's TNR:

By now, the "debate" on the floor has slowed to tedious, repetitive speeches--mostly by freshman members of both parties who got stuck with the debate's worst time slots. Earlier in the evening, however, there had been a few delicious moments as Democrats mocked the phoniness of the marathon. At one point Nevada Democrat Harry Reid noted that when Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist conducted a poll about judicial filibusters on his website, the Democratic position won a 60 percent majority--thanks to some well-coordinated mischief, no doubt--before the posted results mysteriously vanished.

With evident delight, Reid also quoted from a GOP email that Democrats had somehow acquired that day.

It is important to double your efforts to get your boss to S-230 on time. Fox News channel is really excited about the marathon. Britt [sic] Hume at 6 would love to open the door to all our 51 Senators walking on to the floor. The producer wants to know, will we walk in exactly at 6:02 when the show starts so we can get it live to open Britt Hume's show? Or, if not, can we give them an exact time for the walk-in start?


Illinois Democrat Richard Durbin then asked Reid, with a funny faux-earnestness, whether "we [will] get updates from time to time how Fox News would like to orchestrate the rest of this?" "Perhaps so," Reid replied with a smile. "If not, maybe we could check with the Federalist Society, which, coincidentally, is starting their convention tomorrow." This was masterful stuff. Later in the night I would overhear one irked Republican staffer mutter to another "How did they get that email?"



and, here's Reuters on Frist's poll shenanigans:

Meanwhile, according to Web records and people following the skirmish, the poll was doing some changing of its own.

-- First, temporarily daunting "No" voters, the question was flipped, to: "Should the Senate be prevented from exercising its Constitutional duty to provide the president's judicial nominees with an up or down vote?"

-- It was soon restored to the original sense, if not wording, then reading: "Should the Senate exercise its Constitutional duty to provide the president's judicial nominees with an up or down vote?"

-- But a few hours later, the question was again coming from the opposite tack, asking: "Should the Senate minority block the body's Constitutional duty to provide the president's judicial nominees with an up or down vote?"

-- Finally, late Wednesday night, with thousands of votes pouring in every minute, the poll was closed and the result recorded as: "Should the Senate perform its constitutional duty to provide the president's judicial nominees with an up or down vote. Yes: 54 percent. No: 46 percent. 106,615 votes."

Frist's spokesman, Bob Stevenson, denied on Thursday the poll had been changed to try to ensure any particular result, attributing the initial back-and-forth to efforts to foil the automatic voting programs that were being used.



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