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"Passage was expected," noted CBS' Bob Orr before the financial bailout was defeated. "It was not supposed to be this way," ABC's Jake Tapper told us, since the plan had been for the Democrats to guarantee 140 votes and the Republicans 80: "They ended up delivering only 65." NBC's Tom Costello calculated, therefore, that fully 67% of the GOP caucus had opposed its own President, its own Treasury Secretary and its own Congressional leadership. "I think a lot of people, even the House leaders were surprised that this went down," ABC anchor Charles Gibson suggested to George Stephanopoulos. "I sure was," Stephanopoulos replied.
CBS anchor Couric asked a peculiar pair of asymmetrical questions of the two leaders of the House. "Why were you not able to deliver more Democrats?" she inquired of Steny Hoyer, the Majority Leader. "We think we did our job," the Democrat responded, whose whips counted correctly. "What was the impact of Speaker Nancy Pelosi's remarks today in your view?" she posed to John Boehner, the Minority Leader, whose whips fell short. "After what I thought was a rather partisan speech…it really killed our chances to get any of a dozen members to actually come our way and vote for the bill," the Republican replied, echoing his afternoon talking points. CBS' Orr reported that when Democrats heard that explanation for Boehner's failure they accused Republicans "of throwing a political temper tantrum."
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