Weirdness on the Mukasey Vote

The story here is odd. It appears that Senators received something less than an hour's notice the the debate prior to the vote was going to start.

According to Senate sources, as the Dem Senate leadership remained in closed-door negotiations with their GOP counterparts over whether to hold the vote, Senators were getting mixed signals throughout the day as to whether the vote would happen by the end of yesterday. The actual notification that there would be a vote didn't come from leadership until at least 6:30 or 7 PM last night -- catching aides on the staffs of the presidential campaigns and on the staffs of other senators off guard.

"I had my coat on and was walking out the door when I first heard about the vote," one staffer said.

The senators were notified that there would be five hours of debate, and that a vote would be happening at midnight, or possibly before, sources said.

Aides to one of the senators running for President said they were surprised at how adamant the leadership was that a vote would be coming so quickly -- with or without them present. One aide to this senator said that his staff told leadership that they couldn't get back for a vote until later in the night.

This is seriously odd.

Why the proverbial bum's rush. With the goal of a vote by midnight, and 5 hours of debate, a 6:30 notification is almost no notice. What was Reid trying to do, and why was he trying to do it?