Okay, this is pretty pitiful.
You know we’ve been talking all day about Rep. Charles Taylor (R-NC) and his claims that the House vote counting tabulation system had wrongly counted him as not voting on CAFTA when in fact he had voted “NO”.
We brought you an interview with Rep. Coble (R-NC) who Taylor said he voted with as well as our fruitless efforts to confirm Taylor’s story with the House Clerk’s office.
Now I’ve just seen this AP story which follows up on the various stories of Reps who got squeezed by the leadership at the last moment for their votes. The story follows up on Taylor’s statement about the mistake in the voting tabulation. And Taylor was apparently asked when he realized the mistake had occurred. According to the AP Taylor said, “This morning, after I got out of the gym.”
I’m sorry. But that’s ridiculous.
CAFTA was a very important vote. It was particularly important and controversial in Taylor’s district, which is very hostile to free trade agreements (for the moment, we’ll set aside the issue of what constitutes ‘free trade’, etc.). Taylor was one of the House Republicans targeted by the leadership to get pressed hard on voting for CAFTA even though it would clearly be unpopular in his district.
He gets wrongly counted as failing to cast a vote. It’s publicized widely. And he only realizes something went wrong the next day when he’s leaving the gym?
Is that credible?
