Rand Paul’s Hoarse Horse

As regular readers will have noted, January Magazine doesn’t generally chime in on political goings on, even when the temptation is at its greatest. But this week we stumbled onto something so on-target for our readership, we thought we’d take a fast swipe.

Though the occurrence has now been corrected, when Kentucky Republican Rand Paul’s history making 13-hour filibuster was first reported, Poltico said:

About 24 hours before Holder’s letter, at 11:47 a.m Wednesday, Paul took the floor and vowed to go until he “could no longer speak.” He didn’t look tired and his voice wasn’t horse but at the top of hour four, Sen. Mike Lee (R-Utah) arrived on the floor to ask a question of Paul, the only way Paul would be able to stop speaking without yielding the floor.

As is their right and mandate, Copyediting was quick to pounce. “The error, of course, is that the authors did not intend to indicate anything equine (horse) about Paul’s voice, but rather meant to say that his voice wasn’t harsh or rough (hoarse).” And because they are a big enough journal in a world filled with goofy mistakes, they even managed to sneak in a joke while turning the other cheek. “As far as errors go,” Dawn McIlvain Stahl reported, “this isn't in the horse race for being one of the worst editors see.”