Here's something I can't say I recall happening, and I spent a few years hanging around Capitol Hill and keeping a close eye on such things. With the somewhat startling news that the House of Representatives rejected the historic bailout bill, the main House website at House.gov has gone down, at least from my laptop/browser/ISP. Speaker Nancy Pelosi's site -- and for that matter, The Gavel, her blog -- is unresponsive. The website of Rep. Barney Frank's Financial Services Committee, the committee of jurisdiction on the bill, is unreachable. The site of the Office of the Clerk, which keeps tabs on who voted how on the bill, is kaput. And Thomas.gov, the official legislative archive of the United States Congress, just hangs when you search for the bill. At a time when the American people want to hear directly from their elected leaders, it's indeed unfortunate (and the slightest bit unsettling) that we've lost one means of hearing from them. People are a bit nervous today, and with good reason. And getting 404 errors from Capitol Hill isn't necessarily the ideal way to calm those fears.

UPDATE: With these official congressional sites still moving sluggishly or simply unavailable, we've gone ahead and posted a pdf of the roll call vote on the bailout bill. Enjoy.

UPDATE: Government sites weren't the only ones having trouble holding up under all the attention today. From OpenCongress on Twitter: "c-span.org. govtrack.us, clerk.house.gov, opencongress.org have all been down for periods today over bailout. Good to see public interest."