"Even hedged regrets are welcome, but the irony is that a Senator who says the parties need to work more together..."

"... will have as his main legacy the most partisan and polarizing legislation of modern times."

Had [Jim Webb] or any one of the 60 Democrats insisted that the Administration get Republican votes, or drop the bill's worst provisions, history would have been very different.

A second irony is that Democrats only had those 60 Senate votes because of a series of improbable and corrupt events. Mr. Webb won his race by a hair in 2006 after incumbent George Allen stupidly uttered the word "macaca," and the media portrayed him as racist. Alaska's Ted Stevens lost his seat in 2008 by 3,724 votes after he was convicted eight days before the election in a trial in which the Justice Department withheld crucial evidence. He was later exonerated. And Al Franken, who was trailing on Election Day, managed to steal the Minnesota recount in 2008 by 312 votes from a hapless Norm Coleman....

History... had you remembered those 3 incidents and the fact that all 3 were required to produce the 60 votes that allowed the Democrats to inflict Obamacare on us?

Obama, referring to the "narrow window" of time when he had 60 votes in the Senate: "after Franken finally got seated and Arlen had flipped, but before Scott Brown won in Massachusetts."

Arlen had flipped.

Al Franken responds.

A bhtv commenter notices something:

I talk with Byron York about Tiger Woods, Dr. Laura, Michelle Obama, Steven Slater, Al Franken, the Prop 8 same-sex marriage decision, and the Ground Zero mosque..

This one's called "The Luckiest Diavlog on the Face of the Earth" for reasons that become apparent near then end. Also, somewhere in there the tornado sirens (in my town) go off.



ADDED: If you need a non-Flash format, go here and pick MP3/MP4.

Shed a tear for the clown trapped in the place of no mirth.

The NYT does.

Cobwebbed by senseless rituals, speeches which no one listens to and rules that make it all but impossible to act on the will of the people, the Senate cries for more ridicule, decorum breaches and old-fashioned wit.

To get through that sentence you need to believe: 1. If only the Senate didn't require 60 votes for cloture, the bills that would pass would be what the people want, and 2. When the legislative process is dysfunctional, what you want is hilarity. Now, the column is about the Sad Clown of the Senate Al Franken, so we come to that sentence bearing another burden of credulity: that Al Franken is a rich source of wit and ridicule. As for decorum breaches... this is a different sort of mental obstacle for me. Under what circumstance is it good for an individual member of a legislative body to make himself an exception to the rules of decorum? Who does he think he is? He's not the star of a movie satirizing government. He's one of a group of equals who have taken on the public service of making laws.

... Little has changed since Mark Twain offered this assessment: “Suppose you were an idiot. And suppose you were a member of Congress. But I repeat myself.”

If Al Franken is such a wit, why are you quoting Mark Twain? Answer, via Mark Twain: Al Franken is an idiot.

Hmmm... would it breach decorum for me to say that Al Franken is a big, fat idiot?

... Absent any structural change, what the Senate badly needs is a jolt of humor, a clown to shame fellow members of the circus. More ridicule, more mirth under the spotlight to fight a mildewed sense of entitlement, could have the ironic effect of forcing senators to act like adults.

A clown to shame.... oh, yeah! You know the rich comic tradition of The Shaming Clown.

"Felons Voting Illegally May Have Put Franken Over the Top in Minnesota, Study Finds."

At least 341 convicted felons voted, illegally, in Minneapolis-St. Paul, and Franken won by 312 votes.

So... at what rate do convicted felons go Democratic... in predominantly Democratic twin cities?

"Is there anything cooler than Al Franken at Netroots Nation?"

No, there is nothing cooler than Al Franken at Netroots Nation. It is absolutely the coolest thing known to mankind.

Senator ACORN.

"Franken won by 312 votes. ACORN claimed to have registered 48,000 new Minnesota voters. If just 1% were ineligible but cast ballots, or had ballots cast for them illegally, and survived the recount process ... that's 480 votes, almost certainly overwhelmingly cast for Franken. ..."

"Watch These Terrible People Yapping At Each Other."

A Wonkette headline that I tried to read out loud and said: "Watch These Terrible People Lapping At Each Other." Ah, remember the original Wonkette? Everything was sexy somehow. Now... I don't read it enough to know what the point is, other than to make everything sound funny, though in this case the headline has nothing to do with what is supposed to be so hilarious: Al Sharpton is really skinny now.

Rush Limbaugh is skinny now too. He looks like this:



Ironically, Al Franken is quite fat.

Isn't it sweet that Rush posed in front of a picture of his kitty cat's bowl? Does Al Franken have a cat? Google image search suggests no:

Hello, from the road.

Somewhere in Indiana...



We're not even halfway to our goal today, but we needed to stop on an important mission and then again for some coffee and WiFi. In the car, we partook of some of the Sotomayorganza, but that got old after an hour or so. I had my notebook on my lap, and I wrote... I mean authored:

"wrote... authored..."

That was at 9:25 CT, when Sotomayor was in the middle of talking about some Ginsburg opinion. SS had already voiced the word "wrote" and then she changed it to "authored," as if "wrote" was a mistake. I know there are people who think "wrote" and then make a point to say "authored" — and do all sorts of other hoity-toity substitutions — but, jeez, if the simple world has already slipped out, move on. Don't let people hear that you do that.

Not that it's disqualifying or anything. Just something that made me want to write in my notebook, back in Wisconsin a few hours ago. Now, as I said, we are in Indiana.

A cute little girl walks up to our table and stares. I say hi. She thinks a bit, then says, "Y'all got 2 computers?!" I say, yeah. She's all, "How'd you get that?" I say, we just got 'em, as her dad/older brother shoos her along.

Back to my Sotomayor notes.

strategy: boring us to death

+ avoiding creating highlights for the nightly news

no one has ever said "precedent" so many times in a confirmation hearing

And I remember saying something like: "She's talking about precedent so much because it's her way to nullify anything that she ever did as a Court of Appeals judge. She did it because of precedent, so she's not really responsible for anything." But there's room to maneuver within the limitations of precedent, and in the things that she did — while citing precedent — we can perceive her leanings, and we quite properly want to know what her leanings are.

Other techniques she's using: speaking very slowly, laying out the basics of case law, and repeating the most innocuous platitudes about judging.

We switched over to the satellite radio. 60s on 6. "Mrs. Robinson," then The Happenings doing one of those quasi-pedophilia-type songs that no one would do anymore ("Go away little girl..."). Click to 80s on 8. "Rock the Casbah." The 80s sometimes beat the 60s. Not often, but sometimes.

We switch off the radio, and I read the comments to the baseball pitch post out loud:

Paul Zrimsek said — paren — "Placeholder for a thousand words of bafflegab involving depth of field and photo-editing software, somehow proving that Obama threw a perfect strike" — close paren. Ha ha. I would front page that.

Later, we get back to the Sotomayorganza, and it's Al Franken at last. He's talking about himself again, saying something that we start parodying: Here I am, Al Franken, a Senator, talking to you, Sonia Sotomayor; we are here, in the Senate, and I am talking and you are talking. Check the transcript and you'll see. He's in this inane "I am a Senator" mode, and he's breaking all records for using the word "I." He bumbles through pointless questions detailing cases and revealing he knows next to nothing about actual Supreme Court cases. He ends his segment by asking Sotomayor: What's the title of the "Perry Mason" episode where Perry Mason lost a case? This gives Sonia a chance to giggle a bit in a human manner — after being ploddingly robotic all day. She doesn't know the title, and it turns out Al doesn't either, which baffles old man Leahy.

Time to close up the MacBooks and hit the road again.

"8 Best Moments from Sonia's Hearing."

With video clips. A highlight:

FRANKEN’S DEBUT: STILL NOT FUNNY

Apparently Franken didn’t read Victor Navasky’s plea in the July 10 New York Times. Navasky begged Franken to remain funny, despite the responsibilities of his new post. That humorless piece was better than Franken’s performance today.

"The Democrats have total control."

Via Memeorandum, which links to a criticism by Greg Sargent of a minor aspect of this ad. The major thing I'm seeing here a very effective ad for the Republican Party. Of course, you can't beat something with nothing. The Republicans need more than the fact that the Democrats are scary. But the ad resonated with me. Now, Al Franken as the face of that scariness may be a bit silly. And, actually, I don't think you need to go all emotive to get the desired effect. I think I'd be more scared by a straightforward presentation of facts, recited by a sober voiceover, and no music at all.

"The salient thing about Franken isn’t that he used to be a satirist."

"It's that he used to be a satirist who was so interested in politics that he transitioned to becoming a political satirist and then a candidate for office. All because he was really interested in the issues and wanted to make a difference. Most comedians probably aren’t very well-informed about policy issues, but comedians do have both the time and the means to inform themselves if they’re so inclined, and Franken very much was and is so inclined."

Matt Yglesias assures us that we don't just have a clown in the Senate.

(Now, why do I feel that I can predict the first comment?)

Al Franken, a Senator at last.

And now, the Democrats have their 60. I am genuinely afraid!

Franken...

... wins.

"We all remember Bush v. Gore."

Coleman's quest.

Here he comes now! Your new Senator!

Hey, did Al Franken just win?

Isn't it rich?

ADDED: "More ballots than voters."

"The political ground is already shifting under Big Labor's card-check initiative."

"The unions poured unprecedented money and manpower into getting Democrats elected; their payoff was supposed to be a bill that would allow them to intimidate more workers into joining unions."

Paradoxically, it's [Senate Majority Leader Harry] Reid's bigger majority that is now hurting him. In 2007, he got every Democrat (save South Dakota's Tim Johnson, who was out sick) to vote for cloture. But it was an easy vote. Democrats like Mr. Pryor knew the GOP held the filibuster, and that Mr. Bush stood ready with a veto. Now that Mr. Reid has 58 seats, red-state Democrats in particular are worried they might actually have to pass this turkey, infuriating voters and businesses back home.

I love this. The Democrats must now take responsibility for the things they've been promoting.

If Al Franken pulls out a win in Minnesota, Mr. Reid might be inspired to use his 59 votes to forge ahead. Some House Democrats are also suggesting union intimidation would in fact "stimulate" the economy, and that the legislation ought to be attached to the upcoming spending package.

I hope Al Franken does win — precisely and paradoxically because I want brakes on Congress. So that happened because a comedian — did he really win his election? — voted for it? The Senate Democrats will have to worry that's what we'll say about their bad legislation. So maybe they'll see the importance of looking like competent adults and exercise restraint. You know, they already have the problem of looking like clowns — there's the Blago-Burris nonsense and the prospect Caroline Kennedy. If a comedian arrives the fear of looking like clowns should kick into high gear. That fear gives me hope.

"Coleman leads Franken by just 2 votes."

Do you think that's funny?

What's funnier?
	The Minnesota recount
	Al Franken
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