American Patrol

Following a unanimous verdict from the Minnesota Supreme Court and a long delayed concession from former Senator Norman "Bates" Coleman(R), former SNL producer and Air America radio personality Al "I'm Serious" Franken will be Minnesota's junior United States Senator. State Governor Tim Pawlenty(R), who had been abetting his party's efforts to block the seating of another vote in the Democrat's Senate majority by refusing to certify the election results after the initial recount and first state court case, indicated he would be signing Franken's certification sometime today. Franken, in a speech outside his Minneapolis home after the Supreme Court decision was announced, indicated he would be going to Washington, where a fully staffed office awaits him, sometime next week.

Coleman, whose concession contradicts earlier statements about taking the case as far as the US Supreme Court if necessary, indicated in his statement this afternoon that he was conceding in part to avoid "damaging the unity of our state..."-- the same unity he appealed to when he urged Franken to concede, in clear contradiction of Minnesota state law's requirement of a recount, back in November. Since that time, Coleman has managed to unite a majority of Minnesotans against his politically opportunistic legal battle to save his Senate seat by any means necessary. Speculation was rife about Coleman's political future, if any-- his approval ratings as Senator were consistently mediocre, and his legal contesting of the '08 Senate race in the face of polls suggesting that nearly two thirds of Minnesotans thought he should concede defeat have not improved his popularity. Coleman is rumored to be considering a run for Governor in 2010-- Pawlenty is retiring and possibly preparing a Presidential run-- but may find that bed pretty thoroughly shat in by its current occupant, who is preparing to unilaterally slash the state budget after vetoing a tax increase earlier this year.

As for Franken, the joy that Minnesota Democrats must be feeling over finally getting him seated should be more than a little tempered by the fact that it is occurring nearly eight months after Election Day. The blame for Franken's failure to decisively defeat a relatively unpopular Republican Senator in a state that went for Barack Obama by 11 points should be laid firmly where it belongs-- on the fact that Franken was a lousy candidate, a vague and uninspiring speaker (not aided in the least by his tendency to denote seriousness by means of a vocal mannerism that made it sound like he was trying to suppress a large belch) with a background full of ripe "gotcha" material, more of which is likely to surface between now and his probable re-election run.

For the moment, though, congratulations to him, and a sigh of relief that this is finally over, meets a somewhat wary "stay tuned..."

As badly as things had been going for the Powers That Be in the weeks before last Wednesday, it is all too possible to imagine a conference call taking place on the subject "Who can we take out that will reboot the news cycle for the next few days?" Michael Jackson was the clear choice-- once wildly popular, always wildly controversial, visibly unhealthy, and with a family and entourage loaded to the very brim with telegenic lunatics who could be counted on to spew forth into every camera that got within a few hundred yards.

Intentional or not, Jackson's death managed to dominate news coverage from the time his sudden illness was announced clear through the weekend, and is still receiving extensive coverage this morning. What news has been displaced in that time period is something we may learn when it festers into full blown tragedy or scandal, if we learn it at all. Why this kind of tabloid crap rates wall to wall coverage by all major cable news sources for days is a question we can contemplate at leisure in the meantime.

In some ways, we can count ourselves as lucky-- their second choice was a plane load of tourists.