WHO KNEW THEY HAD WHEELS?:

The Day the Wheels Came Off (Patrick Hynes, 1/10/2005, AMERICAN SPECTATOR)

On October 13, 2004, Senator Mark Dayton (D-Minn.) gave his staff the rest of the month off, locked up his office, and hunkered down back in the Land of 10,000 Lakes, so convinced was he that terrorists would strike Washington, D.C. on or before Election Day. So when Mark Dayton tells you that you need to sit back, close your eyes, and find your happy place, you can be sure he knows of what he speaks.

His colleague Senator Barbara Boxer (D-Calif.) ought to have listened to him. Dayton used all due decorum last Thursday to remind Boxer to take her meds during the "historic" debate over the certification of President George W. Bush's victory. "It's not often that I find myself rising in disagreement with [Boxer], but I must today emphatically disagree," Dayton said on the Senate floor. "I believe that those involved in this … are seriously misguided and leading us all into a very unfortunate precedent."

This exchange occurred after Boxer was reduced to tears while she announced she would mount the challenge in the Senate after having been approached by a few radical members of the Lower Chamber. It's something she had always wanted to do, she confessed. She wanted to do it in 2000, but Al Gore of all people talked her off the ledge. [...]

Boxer's rebellion was only the highlight in one of the most bizarre days in congressional history, January 6, 2005.

Now that's a deft bankshot.

Posted by Orrin Judd at January 10, 2005 10:45 AM