Last night Rachel Maddow had a tidbit on her show about the fact that the Wall Street Journal had tried to get the name of the newest staffer on Capital Hill.
Rachel Maddow reported near the end of the first half hour of her show last night that the Democrats have hired a speed reader.:
The newest staffer in Congress works for the House Energy Committee, has the lowly title of Staff Assistant, and would not give his name to the Wall Street Journal when a reporter asked for it last night. The one thing we know about this new staff assistant in Congress is that he works for the Democrats and he's a speed reader. Professionally. He is a professional speed reader. He can read an entire page of text out loud in 34 seconds.
The reason he's been hired is because the Republican plan to block the Democrat's Global Warming Bill is allegedly to force all 946 pages of that bill to be read aloud followed by the text of all the several hundred amendments the Republicans plan to offer to the this Bill, even though they know that basically all of those amendments will fail. The plan is to make the process of passing the Bill take so long that it fails through shear exhaustion. Hence the Democrats hiring a speed reader.
You know, sometimes Congress is just one big game of "Oh Yeah," ... "Yeah" ... "Oh Yeah," ... "Yeah!"
The Wall Street Journal, even though they were unable to get the name of the Speed Reader, did publish a story about it:
Republicans on the committee have said they may force the reading of the entire 946-page bill -- as well as major amendments that measure several hundred pages -- all aloud. This is a procedure lawmakers have a right to invoke. Republicans are largely against the bill, which aims to cut emissions of so-called greenhouse gases by more than 80% over the next half-century but would be costly.
Republicans haven't tried the tactic, but Committee Chairman Henry Waxman (D., Calif.) is prepared.
Need for Speed (Read) to Pass Climate Bill
Leave it to Henry Waxman to be prepared for anything.
Today, the Speed Reader gave a demonstration of his skills to the House Energy and Commerce Committee, and Talking Points Memo has posted the video:
At the end of the video he revealed his name, Douglas Wilder, and that if anybody in the country wants to hire a speed reader, he's available.