The high-tech vehicle worked. Unfortunately for Missouri Sen. Claire McCaskill, the lower tech vehicle did not.

The Democratic lawmaker got trapped Tuesday morning in a tram running between the U.S. Capitol and the Hart Senate Office Building. While stuck unmoving and underground, she sent out messages on Twitter, which worked fine even while the rail system didn't.

Her first dispatch explained her predicament and pointed out fellow Sens. Joseph Lieberman, Lamar Alexander and George V. Voinovich were trapped in an adjoining car.

Later, Ms. McCaskill tweeted that the tram operators got the system moving. "Now going back to Capitol for a vote," she wrote. "Takes longer, but think I'll walk."

Showing that nothing, not even a tram breakdown, escapes political scrutiny, subsequent blog entries claimed Ms. McCaskill sat on the train because she refused to walk. (People couldn't get out of the stopped tram, she explained.) She then posted the remark of one respondent who offered, probably tongue in cheek, "Obviously you would've broken out of tram and freed other passengers if you believed in free markets."

Another day in Washington.