the rightwing czar

Al Franken wants us to know that he thinks Sotomayor is in the “mainstream of American judicial thought” – which is funny to hear coming from a comedian with no judicial expertise.

What makes Franken qualified to interview Sotomayor about her judicial philosophy, exactly? Is it because he once did a skit on SNL poking fun at the Clarence Thomas hearings?

I’m honestly dumbfounded that he has been assigned to the judicial committee where he will be part of the hearings to nominate a supreme court appointee after being a senator for a week with no legal experience at all. Has the fact that we elected a comedy to the United States Senate made us numb to whatever other idiocy comes from his tenure on the Hill?

Aw, what a touching moment.

Majority Leader Harry Reid of Nevada welcomed Sen.-elect Al Franken of Minnesota to the U.S. Senate today, telling reporters that Americans will be “pleasantly surprised” by the former Saturday Night Live comedian.

I guess Harry and Al have a special bond, both of them being failed comedians and all:

In Franken’s victory speech yesterday he made a comment about how he isn’t the “60th” Democrat but the “2nd Minnesota Senator.” That was apparently the first joke Senator Doofus has made in two years.

Franken isn’t just a Democrat and he isn’t just a liberal. The guy is a screaming nutcase who is as radical as they come. CNN gives us a quick rundown on his positions on some major issues which include support for a single-payer health care system and “comprehensive immigration reform.”

In reality, Franken as the 60th vote (instead of say, the 59th vote) is pretty insignificant – especially compared to what cable news will make of it. Republicans controlled the wheels of the government for most of the eight years Bush was in office with majorities much smaller than what the Democrats have in the Senate right now.

The talk of this 60th vote to protect against the filibuster was just Harry Reid’s way of stalling from having to implement every whim and desire of the loony left. Much of the Democrats agenda – a second stimulus, mass amnesty to illegal aliens, health care reform that will cost trillions, and cap and tax – are too extreme for the American public and not what they bargained for in November when they elected a party promising bipartisanship and low taxes. To his credit, Reid understands this and hasn’t been making extraordinarily drastic moves like we’d see if the crew at dKos were in charge.

As much as it just sucks that someone like Al Franken will actually be given the honor of being called Senator, we aren’t in any worse shape today than we were last week.

To be fair, though, last week we were in pretty bad shape.

Oh good: The chief qualification of Senator Doofus is that he resisted making jokes for two years when he very easily could have. Now that is the type of discipline we desperately need in Washington.

For more than two years he went to every county, every town, every Democratic-Farmer-Labor local convention — you name it — and never once made a joke of it all, or even made a joke of himself. It may sound like nothing, but it’s hard for a comedian in that situation to resist the temptation to turn his own ambition into a joke.

Poor Al. That must have been agonizing to resist turning your campaign for the United States Senate into a joke.

I’m sure someone with his intellectual prowess will come up with lots of good questions to ask her. I mean – going to law school probably shouldn’t be a requirement for the guy helping to determine whether or not a nominee has the legal mind necessary to serve on the nation’s highest court, right?

Ladies and gentleman, a hack writer, failed radio host, and mediocre comedian has just been named to the United States Senate. Probably the biggest indicator of just how poorly the Republicans governed over the last few years. We deserve this:

Minnesota’s Supreme Court has dismissed former Sen. Norm Coleman’s challenge to the state’s November election results and declared Democratic challenger Al Franken the winner.

The unanimous opinion ruled that Franken “received the highest number of votes legally cast” and is entitled “to receive the certificate of election as United States senator from the state of Minnesota.”

Coleman has conceded, Obama has congratulated Franken, and we’re in for 6 years of pure absurdity on the Senate floor.