Whispers

by digby

Dana Bash really doesn’t know what she’s talking about. Media Matters caught this one today. I’ve got another on. I noted the other day that the cable babblers were all whispering that Nancy Pelosi and the Democrats had gone back on their campaign promises to work five days a week because the John Boehner had asked for the day off to go to the football game and the Dems capitulated. Here’s a transcript of one of the segments I saw:

Blitzer: Let’s go back to Capitol Hill, where something is missing this Monday. The House of Representatives is not in session despite a vow by the new Democratic leadership to work a full week like most Americans do.

We’ll turn to our Congressional correspondent once again, Dana Bash — Dana, what’s going on?

BASH: Two words — college football, Wolf.

The national championship college football game is tonight. It’s in Arizona. And Democratic leadership aides say they got a request from a Republican, the top Republican, actually, House Majority Leader John Boehner, who is from Ohio, his home state college team, Ohio State is playing in that game, not to have any votes today so that he could go.

He is there. And we understand that it’s not just him. Nine representatives and two senators bought tickets to go to this game in Arizona. And the only Democrat we know about — there could be others — the only one we know about now who is definitely going is Stephanie Tubbs Jones, also from Ohio.

Now, this is the kind of thing, Wolf, that wouldn’t have even gotten a second look or a second thought just a few minutes ago. But this is a Democratic Congress where leaders promised — they made a campaign pledge to come in and work five days a week.

So the fact that they adhered to a request, Republican or Democrat, not to work today because of a college football game, it is certainly being noticed.

A reader was upset about this when she read about it and decided to make a phone call. Unsurprisingly, this story was completely wrong:

I was so angry about this that I called the speaker’s office. I learned that something entirely different happened.

Regardless of the abbreviated excerpts of Blunt’s and Hoyer’s old-geezer bloviating on the floor last Thursday about a football game, and the smattering of media reports that portrayed the dem’s promise of a 5 day work week as DOA, here’s what was going on with the House schedule – Friday was taken up by the mandatory attendance by all freshman congress members at a seminar on House procedure. Monday was given to members specifically to read all the legislation that will be debated and voted on this week.

As far as the Blunt/Hoyer exchange in the House, Hoyer went on to qualify his remarks repeatedly (clumsily, as the game had nothing to do with scheduling). Those qualifications never made the articles that were written, though most included breathless quotes from Republicans about how the Democrats now control the calendar. And earlier in the House exchange, Hoyer was clear that no votes would be held on Monday was for an entirely different (and worthy) reason; Democrats pledged to give Republicans a full 24 hour period to read legislation before a vote

.

This was validated by this video in which Nancy Pelosi is caught on camera not even knowing what the BCS was. She explained at the time that she wanted to give members a three day layover to read all the legislation the Democrats were preparing to put to a vote this week. Imagine that.

This nasty junior high GOP backbiting could have easily been cleared up with a simple phone call, as my reader demonstrates. But Dana Bash and Wolf Blitzer were too busy enjoying the delicious little bitch fest to bother to question whether these whispers were actually true.

How do rumors like this get started? You have to ask yourself — qui bono?

.