Senator Franken

Eight months after election day Minnesota finally has its second senator. Al Franken will no doubt bring great style and intelligence to the U.S. Senate and his contributions to the debates of the day will be refreshing and insightful. Norm Coleman can always revert to his old behavior--switching parties when he wants to run for a new office. It's time for a Democrat at the governor's desk and Norm may have it in him to, as Churchill put it, "re-rat."

Anyway, the Democrats now have 60 votes in the Senate and the Republicans can't stop anything by filibuster. The seat that is now Franken's has been held by Hubert Humphrey, Fritz Mondale and Paul Wellstone and Al will be keenly sensitive to their legacies. Had Paul Wellstone not died in that plane crash in 2002 Coleman would not have been in the Senate in the first place.

Rain Clouds

The Grand Supreme Most Excellent Poo-Bah of Iran is exposed as a corrupt and violent pol with the moral system of Luca Brazzi. The only possible symbol of this deranged regime is the young woman shot dead on the street in Tehran by some hiding coward, not the demented president in his London Fog zip-up windbreaker. I remember old Senator Sam Ervin at the Watergate hearings warning Nixon's goons in a line from Scripture, "God is not mocked!" he thundered, justice will be done. Today President Obama quoted again what he said are his favorite words of Martin Luther King, Jr., "The arc of the moral universe is long but it bends toward justice." A sweet green justice is about to fall on Iran as a cleansing holy rain and all the world will witness.

Iran Weekend

CNN's coverage has devolved to nerd-talk about how great Twitter is and the B-Squad they've had on today don't seem to notice that there is a near total lack of real information about events in Iran. They could be doing the red carpet at the Grammys for all the heft they bring to this job. At the same time we read that Walter Cronkite is in "grave condition." In more ways than one.

I just finished reading Tim Weiner's Legacy of Ashes, a history of the CIA. It was the CIA overthrow of a democratically elected prime minister in Iran in 1953 and the installation of the Shah that has Obama watching what he says right now. As someone said the other day, almost no American knows this history and almost no Iranian doesn't. You have to wonder what the boys and girls in Langely are up to tonight.

More

A late report from Nico Pitney says Ahmadinejad has landed in Yekaterinburg in Russia. What kind of president leaves his country during a crisis for a "previously scheduled regional meeting"? Has he fled? And why, of all places, to Yekaterinburg? That is where the Bolsheviks executed the Tsar and his family as the new Soviet Union was consolidating its power. Stay tuned.

Iran

Television and newspapers have not been a great help in understanding what is going on in Iran today. The authorities are resricticting reporters' movements and cancelling visas. The Internet and Twittering young Iranians have become the new Committees of Correspondence for this revolution. An election has been stolen by a Holocaust-denying freak and the corrupt religious powers that back him up. The Iranians want their country back and all of us who blog, comment, and follow their struggle can support them by simply posting our thoughts in the belief that we will be read on their screens in Iran. Pass it on. Yes they can.

Nico Pitney has been live-blogging for days on Huffington Post and is receiving minute-by-minute reports from Iran. I urge everyone to read him and to get on the web in a way that can help the brave young people in Tehran. If this disgusting regime is any where near the edge let's give them a strong shove.

Sonia To Join the Supremes

You have to admire the way Barack Obama plays the game of politics. He has put the Republicans in an impossible place with his nomination of Judge Sotomajor to the Supreme Court. If they go after her in a serious way they will complete the estrangement of Latinos begun by Pete Wilson as governor of California and boot away their votes for generations to come. Without significant Latino support the GOP is on course to become a whites only, Southern, and rural party. No one goes to the White House with a base like that. California, Arizona, New Mexico, Texas and other states across the country could be permanently out of reach. The elephant is behind the eight-ball and the side pocket is open.

The evangelicals? Forget it--even they now understand the extent of their delusion in believing that the Republican Party really believed all that sanctimony they peddled during the years of W. It was all a con, as even Karl Rove has said. The GOP belongs to Cheney and Limbaugh right now and they are as religious as a Michael Vick dog fight.

No obits quite yet for the Republican Party, but their congressional leaders are dismally incompetent and they are being outfoxed at every turn by a brilliant Democratic President with the people behind him.
Let them go after Sotomajor and dig their hole a little deeper.

Barack & Ted's Excellent Adventure

Reason won the day at Notre Dame this afternoon as President Obama and Fr. Hesburgh showed everyone how it is done. Ted Hesburgh is almost 92 years old and his simple presence at the graduation ceremony was as strong a rebuke of fanaticism as was the President's excellent address. You can't beat class; Barack and Ted have it and some others there today do not. Well done.