The Hill reports that a staffer for the senate majority leader, Bill Frist, sent a controversial memo to other Republican staffers regarding the approaching thirty hour talk-a-thon that the Republicans had planned about the Democrats' refusing to vote on Bush's judicial nominations.
"After Republicans walked into the Senate chamber together to begin the extraordinary session, Democrats argued that their move was not a show of unity but rather a television stunt orchestrated for Fox News. They pointed to a memo from Manuel Miranda, a staffer for Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist (R-Tenn.), which said:
"'It is important to double efforts to get your boss to S-230 on time ... Fox News Channel is really excited about this marathon and Brit Hume at 6 would love to open with all our 51 senators walking onto the floor -- the producer wants to know will we walk in exactly at 6:02 when the show starts so they get it live to open Brit Hume's show? Or if not, can we give them an exact time for the walk-in start?'"
The Democrats wanted to wait until 8 p.m. to start the talk-a-thon. They hoped they could take a few hours to finish work on the HUD/VA appropriations bill, but I guess that wasn't important enough for Republicans to waste their time on. As Sen. Orrin Hatch said, "hardly anything is more important" than clearing the President's nominees for the bench. I guess Orrin Hatch is more interested in talking for thirty hours than he is in clearing funds for housing for the poor and benefits for veterans, or maybe he just realizes that he'll never be able to open Brit Hume's show with a senate session on the HUD/VA bill.
Posted by Paul Hina at November 14, 2003 12:31 AM