In response to my earlier post on Gail Collins’ “special rant,” I’ve been deluged with people questioning her math. Here’s a particularly heated one:
Jonah,
I love the way that Collins presents a “hypothetical” filibuster by the 20 least populous states. That, of course, is not what’s happening here. Last time I checked, the GOP has two senators from Texas (2nd in population), one from Florida (4th), one from Ohio (7th), two from Georgia (9th) and one from North Carolina (10th) – representing a total of 73 million people. And that’s only 7 of the 40.
Why should those 73 million people be held hostage by the two votes representing the 1.3 million people of Hawaii (42nd)? Why, they’re only 1.7% of the population of those 6 states!!! We could play this game all day!
What a ridiculous bald-faced lie by this so-called journalist.
Thanks,
[Name withheld]
Update: A few readers complained about the tone of this email, saying that “bald-faced” lie and so forth was over the top. I agree. I don’t think Collins lied, I just think she messed-up. Happens to all of us.