Mr. Franken Goes to Washington

Isn't it funny how when there was a disputed election in 2000, the Republicans called the ticket disputing the vote count "Sore Loserman", but when it's a Republican who's far more definitively on the losing end, suddenly there's all kinds of righteous indignation coming from the elephant side of the fence? Isn't it funny how Republicans hate lawyers but when THEY don't get their way, they're the first ones to lawyer up?

On November 24, 2000, David Aaronovitch wrote in the U.K. Independent about the Party of Whiners:

What is it, I wonder, about the political right that makes them feel that they are somehow entitled to power, and that - when power is denied them - allows them to claim that they - and the country - have been cheated? Since the election of Bill Clinton in 1992, and that of Tony Blair in 1997, the tone of much of the criticism from the right has not been about policies but has focused instead upon the legitimacy of the administrations themselves: Clinton won because he was a serial liar; Blair won because he was a ruthless dissembler; and now Gore is trying to cheat his way into the White House by what amounts to an election fraud. They would have us believe that the Vice-President - in the words of a spoof poster - is a Sore Loserman.

[snip]

Now the Republican attack dogs are out. You would expect the far-right shock-jocks and radio-show hosts like Rush Limbaugh to continue their anti-liberal campaigning in intemperate tones. But look who's joined them! The bulk of the right-leaning press, commentators and academics seem to have united in attempting to portray the incredibly cautious, centrist Democrats as being somehow the products of a hellish liaison between the Whore of Babylon and Vladimir Lenin.

Peggy Noonan, Reagan's brilliant scriptwriter, yells that "the Gore-Clinton Democratic Party is trying to steal the election". The eminent conservative George Will risks a hernia with the sentiment that "the Clinton-Gore era culminates with an election as stained as the blue dress." (It is unwise, incidentally, to interrogate this metaphor too closely. I tried, and regretted it.)

Claudia Rosett writes in The Wall Street Journal that Gore, learning from his boss, "has every reason to figure that he might as well go right on trying to target and redefine those vital Florida ballots until they become, well, whatever they need to be to elect Mr Gore". For her, it's all part of a pattern. "The unprecedented wrangling and lawyering of Mr Gore," she continues (somehow overlooking the lawyering of Mr Bush), "over the vote count is just the first real sample of Mr Clinton's true legacy."

[snip]

So let's get this clear. If Gore wins, though he will lack authority, he will be a legitimate victor. Should, however, the ludicrous Bush (who says he doesn't like messy situations; he should enjoy the Middle East, then) be inaugurated next January, he will be the president who got 320,000 fewer votes than his rival, and who finally triumphed because there just wasn't enough time for one county to hold a recount - a recount described as being democratically essential by the Supreme Court of Florida.

My God, can you imagine how he would have fared had he been a Democrat?

Well, now we know. Norm Coleman isn't going away quietly, and the Republicans are not going to put up with losing the seat that some believe they dispensed with Paul Wellstone to win. Indeed, John Cornyn has already said they will filibuster if necessary to prevent Franken from being seated.

Somehow the idea that what we have on our side is the milquetoast Harry Reid is not reassuring. So...how's that "new way of doing politics" working so far, Mr. Obama?