Watch Paul’s entire production, fully streamable at c-span.org. Better yet, fast-forward Wednesday’s filibuster in the Senate to random intervals with the volume down low for the full Kabuki effect of this American political theater. Watch hour zero, minute zero when, red-tied and wide-eyed, the Kentucky Republican strolls to the lectern. Witness the progression:
3:06 p.m.: The whites of his eyes have begun to match his tie.
9:43: The reds of his eyes have begun match the sheen of the Senate mahogany.
11:43: Sen. John Thune (R-S.D.) is talking now, saving Paul, saving all of us from having to watch.
“One thing senators like to do is talk,” says Don Ritchie, the Senate historian. He worries not for the senator. In the 19th century, all senators were orators. Their constituents got to hear their positions only when they came home to speechify, and those speeches would always last for at least two, three hours. “They were used to standing up on the back of a wagon.”
Sen. Strom Thurmond (R-S.C.) reportedly took daily steam baths in preparation for his 24-hour 1957 screed against the Civil Rights Act, to dehydrate himself and prepare for his separation from the urinal. In 1935, Sen. Huey Long (D-La.) managed to go for 10 hours when he rose to address matters in the National Recovery Act, but he was felled by nature: According to a 2005 Village Voice account of the day, “The Kingfish announced he would yield the floor to seek a conference with the leadership, and he ran for the toilet.”
“My urinary tract was in good shape that day,” says Sen. Bernard Sanders (I-Vt.), the last torchbearer of the filibuster — he spoke for eight hours in 2010 about tax cuts. “We got a call from the nurse,” though, he says. She wanted him to make sure he walked around enough, to avoid blood clots. The experience wasn’t scary, he says, because he was speaking on something “I feel very strongly about.”
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