Yesterday, Congressman Rand Paul led a filibuster that ran close to 13 hours. Officially, it was to block the nomination of John O. Brennan's to head up the Central Intelligence Agency — a job for which he was confirmed today by a vote of 63 to 34. Unofficially, it was about Paul's demand for more information about the administration's domestic policy on imagined drone strikes against U.S. citizens. And in reality, it was probably just a stunt to get that attention and those donations. I guess it worked okay on this third count.
And since it did, we will probably see more of them. I would like to throw out a suggestion…
Next time someone does one of these, I think Comedy Central should interrupt its regular programming at the same time and send Jon Stewart and the correspondents on the Daily Show out to see if they can filibuster longer than the folks then doing it in Congress. If Mr. Stewart is off at his day job as a movie director, then Stephen Colbert. But just keep it going as long as — preferably a few minutes longer that — the one in Washington.
It would be enormously entertaining, plus we'll see if anyone can tell the difference between the elected officials and the comedians.