(Cue music: "Fanfare for the Common Man" --Aaron Copeland)
After 245 days, flanked by former Vice President Mondale and Senior Senator Amy Klobuchar, on Tuesday, July 7 at 12:16pm EDT Alan Stuart Franken stood in the well of the United States Senate and raised his right hand. It took Vice President Joseph Biden about 28 seconds to recite the words of the oath of office. Al Franken, his hand on a Bible that once belonged to his mentor Paul Wellstone, responded simply, "I do." He was the 39th woman or man from Minnesota to do so since Henry Rice and James Shields first so swore in 1858.
Despite some efforts from the ushers in the visitor galleries, applause rose and continued most of three minutes as Senators pressed forward for handshakes and embraces. Senator Leahy gave Senator Franken a pen, holding it up first to say a few words about it.
There was no blood. Vice President Joe Biden’s personal wealth did not spike in exchange for this swearing-in. The previous seat-holder, Norm Coleman, was not dead, not in exile, not an outlaw, but merely one of 4 million Minnesotans now represented in the Senate by Klobuchar and Franken.
All 5 negatives in the last paragraph are possible thanks to statesmen and arguers over the Constitution like James Madison, George Mason and Roger Sherman. They are possible thanks to defenders of the Constitution like John Marshall, Abraham Lincoln, and Barbara Jordan. They are possible thanks to extenders of Constitutional liberties like Susan Anthony, Thaddeus Stevens and Thurgood Marshall.
As drama this moment rated hardly more than a C-Span re-run, and yet that is its tempered glory. The day was a shot in the gut to those who urge might makes right. The swearing-in was a gauntlet slapped to the face of those moved by the aristocratic impulse ("Some born to rule, others born to serve"---oddly never said by those serving. Ponder again Aristotle’s question from 2500 years ago: "Is aristocratic behavior how aristocrats behave, or behavior that preserves aristocracy?")
It was in miniature what happened January 20th, when one man moved out, and another man moved in, to public housing at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue, with a 4 year lease (option for one renewal.) Millions came for that one and millions more watched from around the globe. For the earliest arriving, most-senior Senator (of the incoming class of 2010, you see) the ceremony yesterday was small, short and sweet, with dignity and a raft of smiles. But it warrants some jollification so-----
This day is worth dancing to. I think everybody on-stage are the Kossacks and the whole progressive movement is celebrating at this web address: www.youtube.com/watch?v=obo0S66uI30
(WineRev seen at end, white hat, with trumpet and spin move so hot even Uber-cool Annie Lennox stutters visibly)
To Senator Franken---Hurrah! Huzzah! Whoooohoooo!
(WineRev stands and tosses (TOSSES!) hat!)
(Hat lands among others: a white day bonnet embroidered on one edge: "Abby Adams", a grey kepi, a John Deere cap, a three-corner job, a ladies’ round skimmer with the inside liner marked "R. Parks", a blue kepi, a GI steel helment, a black stovepipe. WineRev fetches back his own.)
This series, now a book (at this link:http://www.wordalchemy.net/...) has been an accident. I set out to post a few diaries about a little footnote to Election 2008---a recount in the MN Senate race--- and add a little local color......but things got a little out of hand.
157 diaries out of hand. 300,000 words out of hand.
Now I had help getting out of hand: the 1963 MN legislature and their Recount law. Secretary of State Mark Ritchie and his staff. 87 county auditors. Over 30,000 poll workers in 4131 precincts. Hundreds of Coleman and 2000 Franken recount monitors and ballot challengers.
I had help getting out of hand: lawyers local and lawyers from Seattle to DC. Law professors from L.A. Loyola to Duke via Ohio State. 5 canvassing board members and 8 judges--good women and men, tried, tested and found equal to every lawyer, law and precedent in the room.
I had help getting out of hand: Jimmy Olson and Lois Lane wannabes, Woodward and Bernstein look-alikes from the UpTake to the (MN (distributive axiom) Post, Independent, Progressive Project and Publius.) They all came across like Clark Kent AFTER visiting the phone booth and made the yo-yos at the Star Tribune and the rapscallions at the Wall Street Journal look like hungover Mortimer Snerds.
And then there were YOU! You! with the 18,000 comments at DailyKos and the UpTake live blog, cranking out almost half a million (!) words! You! with words of insight, law, humor, explanation. You! blew coffee on your monitors, corrected spelling, recoiled appropriately from both lutefisk and Ben Ginsberg, pondered 17 below zero, translated from geek to English so we all understood the Coleman credit card security breech, laughed at lawyers and their light sabres.
You also recommended, and you tipped. (If, like for diary 100, you’d like to tip for real, any number OTHER THAN $16.95 (which will get you the book) at this link:https://cms.paypal.com/.....will (with the e-mail address from the winerev page click above..starting with "ee") will be treated with respect and gratitude and serenaded with the words:
"..and I sit at the bar/
You put bread in my jar/
And say, ‘Man! What a helluva job!’"
So this has been a community effort. I have been the catalyst but you! have been the engaged citizenry, the informed estate, the wisdom of crowds, the body politic and the audience of activists in the Great Orange Hall that Kos Built.
Your personal support came through, whether neli pots, legal counsel, Hebrew pun translation, or lessons in writing Yoda. Your good wishes, your reading and caring about a tedious and exasperating exercize of democracy--- well for all that:
(WineRev stands and doffs (DOFFS!) hat to the Kossacks!)
The argument is settled, the contest decided. I will continue to hang around these boards, putting up diaries, cracking wise in comments, laughing, fuming or shedding a tear by turns. There will come other causes that need to be winerevved. The "morans" still bleat, the "ass"inine still haunt the RNC, the proto-fascists still spew their jingoistic mirages. Mock-moral plastic patriots still win headlines from Bachmannlandia to Wasilla to Argentina. All these will feel the lash of my keyboard.
But on this topic, the struggle for the senate seat of Minnesota, I hope you will let me hang up my hat.
Kossacks (en masse, firmly): "No."
Just this race. Just this hat.
Kossacks: "No"
(WineRev looks sidelong at Kossacks:) You’d do it for Randolph Scott.
Kossacks (gasping, rising to feet, all uncover heads), "Randolph Scott??! (Orchestral music; 6 part harmony with descant; sung:) "Randolph Scott."
Markos: "OK WineRev. Just this race. Just this hat."
I've got the early shift down at the wine shop so I'll need to head over rather soon. Then I'll try & check in over lunch. Thank you for all your help and kindness. Until I write you next, good afternoon, good evening and good night, from yust southeast of Lake Wobegon.
Shalom.