Truly worth the wait!

It's about time.

As I wrote elsewhere yesterday, I'm almost glad this turned out the way it did. On the one hand, I hate that so much money was wasted on the court battle when the outcome has been known for months, and I hate that we had to go through the motions on all this when everybody knew it was really just about keeping that seat vacant for as long as possible, and I hate that Sen. Klobuchar's office has been stuck with twice its normal workload since January.

But for all that, let's remember why Norm Coleman won that senate seat in 2002 in the first place. It was because the right wing s**t machine got away with some spectacularly cynical lies about what did and didn't happen at Paul Wellstone's funeral. I consider the whole episode second only to the Florida 2000 debacle. Yes, somebody in the crowd said something not very nice, but it was not the hate-fest it was made out to be at all. But the truth didn't get out until the damage had been done, as usual. As for those who do know the truth and still think the liberals were out of line, it's only fair to ask yourself, what if the shoe were on the other foot? Say it was Tom Coburn or Trent Lott who had died in that plane crash, and Wellstone had come to the wake...do you really believe every single person in the crowd would treat him with respect?

The pathetic thing is, I've met quite a few wingnuts who really and truly believe they would.

And as I noted in my post-election roundup last November, it was none other than Al Franken who set the record straight in his book, Lies and the Lying Liars Who Tell Them. (Anyone who hasn't read that one yet, do it. Soon. Buy a new copy if you can find one; he could really use the cash right now!) So, although it's a shame he nearly lost the race to Coleman and that he - and we - had to wait so long for this day, I love the fact that he not only won, but that Coleman humiliated himself for months afterward trying to fight the results. It's an all too fitting end to a Senate career that began for the worst possible reason in the first place. (Okay, Saxby Chambliss gives him a run for his money on that front, but he's from a state famous for sending scum to Washington. Of course, having said that, I now have to acknowledge the inimitable Rep. Michele "Smalley-Hoot" Bachmann of...Minnesota. I'll quit now while I'm behind.) And then there's the delicious response from Fox News, which has started already.

Finally, a thought on whether or not we on the left ought to still be angry at Franken for almost blowing the race in the first place. Back in November when it looked like he'd lost, I recall a lot of grousing on the blogs that Betty McCollum or Tim Walz could have easily beaten Coleman. Overlooking the fact that we really can't know that for sure (and that Walz barely counts as a Democrat on a lot of issues and we'd have been lucky to hang onto his House seat), it occurs to me that even if that is right, it's partly because they're much more conventional politicians. Which means we couldn't expect nearly as much of them in the Senate. And yes, of course that means our expectations of Franken are now somewhat inflated after all that everybody had to go through to get him there. But why shouldn't they be? Besides that, Franken really is something of a pioneer when it comes to fighting back against the right wing s**t machine. He was doing it back when Bill Clinton was still kissing Newt Gingrich's ring, and the mainstream media was referring to Rush Limbaugh as a "conservative commentator" and other nice sounding titles that gave him a lot more credit than he deserved. I think we can count on him. Mazel tov, Senator!