I'm sure if the choice was between Blago appointing his talking dog to the Senate and a Republican, they'd go with Blago's talking dog.

Shoot, my dog is smarter than some senators and more active than a lot.

It's really disappointing that some bloggers punt when careful consideration is warranted.  For instance, that's what I think Jane is doing here by saying Reid is rejecting the Rule of Law...when what he is clearly doing is embracing an interpretation of the Law.  Instead of arguing that he's wrongly interpreting the Constitution, she attacks Reid on various fronts.

So far, I haven't been surprised or outraged at anything that has happened.  At most, I've been annoyed.

Sometimes it seems the blogosphere is full of Valley Girls going "OMG! Can you believe that?".  Yes.  Yes I can believe that.  I not only believe that, but there are people who predicted it would happen.  

Ten Worst Political Persons in MN 2008

#9. Betty McCollum/Patricia Lord Faris. If I really and truly thought that Betty McCollum's criticism of Al Franken's writings was based on some moral principle, then she would not be on this list. But I don't think that. Betty's objection was a callous attempt at an eleventh hour influence of the endorsement process. As a supporter of Mike Ciresi, she would not get on board in support of Al Franken...and even after the endorsement, her support was lukewarm at best. It was the type of criticism that turns a simple partisan GOP attack into a relevant media storyline with bi-partisan angles. McCollum has been around long enough to be well aware of that, yet just as the convention is about to render its decision, she is willing to risk such a divisive tactic. As we sit here and watch Minnesota try to determine its next Senator through a laborious recount process, you have to wonder how much of this was affected by McCollum's meddling. I think it was enough to warrant her inclusion on this list. As an extension of McCollum's interference, the candidacy of Priscilla Lord Faris was the coup de grace. With a campaign mantra that simply said "Franken Can't Win" (which would be ironic if he ends up winning anyway), Faris invested a tidy sum of her own money into anti-Franken commercials that would have made any GOPer proud. Here's hoping her brief candidacy was a one shot deal.

When all the votes were counted (except for improperly rejected absentees), Franken was ahead. PDF's of all the ballots that the candidates had objected to were made, put on-line, and we can see that Coleman had the lion's share of frivolous challenges.

Franken still has no objection to counting all the improperly rejected absentees.  But Coleman only wants to count about half of them -- oh, gee, what a coincidence the half that comes from bright red districts.

There are also PDF's of every improperly rejected absentee on-line.  Anyone (and the Star-Trib has, as well as many in the public) can go through them and see that if they are all counted Franken's lead only gets bigger.

from the St. Paul Pioneer Press reporters' blog:

Coleman said that if he were in Franken's shoes he would "step back" and concede the race.

Later:

Sen. Norm Coleman says that if he knew the morning after the election that his lead over Al Franken was going to shrink significantly, he probably wouldn't have urged Franken to concede defeat.

During a visit Friday to an Xcel Energy facility in Monticello, Coleman told reporters that his lead at the time was substantially larger than now and that he hadn't slept in 36 hours.

Fair, accurate, and legal elections must work for all, not just for one party (duh).

Again I will point out that without paper ballots, if only a machine vote-and-count was used, there could be no verifiable recount.  We'd have to take the error-prone, easily hackable, easily manipulated, voter-confusing machines' word for it.  It would have been at best no more than a faith-based guesstimate of the real count.