The problem is that there is no evidence of Sen. Baucus being drunk other than the video itself, and the thing is that Baucus has a tendency to mumble (as Dave Weigel noted). I’ve seen him speak throughout the year over the course of the health care debate and was familiar with his speech pattern, so I didn’t think anything of it when I watched the video, and was surprised to see it gain so much attention. I just saw it as a Drudge-generated controversy on a slow news week. True, I have no way to prove that he wasn’t drunk, and you can draw your own conclusions from the video. For me, it just isn’t conclusive enough.
