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"I am good enough. I am smart enough. And, doggone it, people like me!" That was the Saturday Night Live clip that ABC's Jonathan Karl used to illustrate the fact that 312 more Minnesota voters--out of 2.9m casting ballots last November--liked Democrat Al Franken as their United States Senator over incumbent Republican Norm Coleman. "According to the Senate historian," Karl deadpanned, Franken is "the first professional comedian in the US Senate." NBC's Kelly O'Donnell described Franken as a former "funnyman." To be fair, CBS' Chip Reid did note that Franken had written liberal books and worked as a talkradio host in his time between comedy and politics.
Technically speaking, Franken's victory means that the Democratic caucus in the Senate now has 60 votes, a filibusterproof majority. CBS and ABC both consulted veteran political watchers to disabuse us of that notion. ABC's Cokie Roberts was quoted by Karl: "Democrats disagree with each other on healthcare; they disagree with each other on energy; they are going to disagree with each on taxes. So I would not count all 60 Democrats in one bloc." CBS' Jeff Greenfield was quoted by Reid: "The idea that this now answers the problem of how they get a legislative program through the Senate--No!--that would be a really big exaggeration."
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