帖子“大米博士”讲述在美国民主中，如何利用拖延时间来阻挠议事。

该文举美国九一一调查委员会成员，前参议院议员凯瑞在国会质询美国国家安全事务助理大米博士为例。凯瑞提出了一个美国政府应对恐怖袭击的问题。大米博士从美国反恐历史谈起，用冗长的回答耗费凯瑞的时间。凯瑞发现被套住，抗议说自己只有十分钟的时间，要求她停止回答该问题，转入另一个问题。大米则坚持回答此问题。在凯瑞提高了抗议强度，说“不要阻挠我议事，这不公平” (don't filibuster me, that's unfair)的情况下，大米仍然坚持回答。凯瑞硬招不行，又采取哀兵策略，说"我对你很礼貌谦恭"( I have been courteous )，请求大米停止浪费时间。大米则无动于衷，说她来这就是回答问题的，她有回答的权利。最后，凯瑞无奈，只得任由大米博士“强行回答”了这个问题。

这个唇枪舌剑过程的英文，见于本文的附录。大米是明显的胜者。因为，她成功地耗费了凯瑞的时间。这绝不仅仅凸显了她性格的强硬，而且还介绍了一个议会斗争的重要概念，阻挠议事(filibuster)。用拖延时间的合法手段，小可以杀掉宝贵的十分钟，大可以阻挠法案的通过。这叫做talking a bill out。

该帖子的结论是“民主是一个规则的战场，谁能最好地利用规则，谁就把握更大的胜机。而规则之内的胜利对所有的人都是公平的。民主是一个魔女，若没点风流本事，你还调戏不了”。例子是正确的，结论也是正确的。网上抄袭剽窃的和骂脏话的帖子堆积如山。肯在这样肮脏恶劣的环境之中，捏着鼻子，写这样网文，虽然不是英雄，但也很仗义了。

有些人投入大量时间，考证帖子中无关宏旨的细节出入。十分愚蠢。淮南子谈九方皋找千里马，找了三个月，说找到了。秦王问是什么马，他说是黄色的母马。结果牵过来一看，却是一匹黑色的公马。秦王抱怨说九先生本领不行。伯乐却说，“得其精而忘其粗，在其内而忘其外。见其所见，不见其所不见；视其所视，而遗其所不视”，这里头包含的道理，又远高于相马本身啊。

看质询和做政论的道理，跟挑选千里马是一样的。要“视其所视，而遗其所不视”。政论不是新闻报道，它是阐述道理的。研究它说的道理，才是读政论的正办。揪光了头发，研究是公马还是母马，是黄马还是黑马的，都还不懂得怎样读政论。

=== 附录：凯瑞和大米对话英文原文

MR. KERREY: Let me move to another area.

MS. RICE: May I finish answering your
question, though? Because this is an important point.

MR. KERREY: No, I know it's important.
Everything that's going on here is important, but we got -- I get 10 minutes.
So --

MS. RICE: But since we have a point of
disagreement, I'd like to have a chance to address it.

MR. KERREY: Well, no, actually, there's going
-- we have many points of disagreement with Dr. Clarke that we'll have a chance
to --

MS. RICE: I think --

MR. KERREY: -- we'll have a chance to do in
closed session. You can't -- please don't filibuster
me. It's not fair.

MS. RICE: Do you mean --

MR. KERREY: It is not fair. I have been
polite, I have been courteous. It is not fair to me. (Applause.)

MEMBER OF THE PUBLIC: (Boos.)

MR. KERREY: I understand that we have a
disagreement.

MS. RICE: Commissioner, Commissioner, I'm here
to answer questions. And you've asked me a question, and I'd like to have an
opportunity to answer it.

MR. KERREY: No, it --

MS. RICE: The fact is that what we were
presented on January the 25th was a set of ideas --

MR. KERREY: Okay.

MS. RICE: -- and a paper, most of which was
about what the Clinton administration had done, and something called the
Delenda plan, which had been considered in 1998 and never adopted.

MR. KERREY: Okay.

MS. RICE: We decided to take a different
track. We decided to put together a strategic approach to this that would get
the regional powers -- the problem wasn't that you didn't have a good
counterterrorism person. The problem was you didn't have approach against al
Qaeda because you didn't have an approach against Afghanistan, and you didn't
have an approach against Afghanistan because you didn't have an approach
against Pakistan. And until we could get that right, we didn't have a policy.