Wednesday, February 18, 2009

Senate Follies of 2009

The nation's newest senators or near-senators are making news: Everybody is telling Roland Burris to leave, Kirsten Gilibrand has moved the guns she keeps under her bed and Al Franken is rehearsing his role back in Minnesota while the recount court fight goes on.

*After what is described as the fifth version of his contacts with associates of Rod Blagojevich and first admission of trying to raise money for the former governor, editorial calls for Burris to resign his seat are coming from the Chicago Tribune, the Washington Post and elsewhere. (He may soon have an asterisk to add to the newest title chiseled into granite in the Chicago cemetery that lists his firsts as a "Trail Blazer.")

*New York's new Senator Gilibrand, appointed to replace Hillary Clinton, told a reporter about two guns under her bed last week and, after a publicity firestorm, has decided to relocate them.

"Given that the location of the guns has been disclosed," her spokesman explains, "they have been moved for security reasons."

*Al Franken, with a 225-vote recount lead over Norm Coleman, has met with Minnesota mayors to discuss the national economic crisis and "learn what Minnesota's cities need most from Washington." At the rate the November results are being adjudicated, Franken may still be rehearsing for the part during the Senate's Easter break.

Nobody said 2009 would be dull.

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