Meanwhile, back on Planet Earth…

Honestly, I appreciate Brian McGrory taking a few minutes to notch out a pro-forma “Martha Coakley really ought to debate Scott Brown” blog post before the inevitable coronation proceedings begin. But really, I can’t let him get away with this piece of earnest, civics-class tripe:

“Here’s one problem with all this: When you’re a United States senator, you’re expected to get up on the Senate floor and forcefully debate the issues of the day. You’re expected to be a strong voice in hearings. You need to be a major factor in conference committees. Sometimes, you’re left to push politically unpopular issues against formidable opponents.”

This would be true if those issues happened to include the Teapot Dome Scandal, the XYZ Affair, or the Whiskey Rebellion. The last real debate to take place on the Senate floor involved a member of British Parliament named George Galloway, who laid into Norm Coleman like Mike Tyson settled arguments with Robin Givens. Forget New England, that shit was some straight OE800.

Since then, the next highest moment of drama came when Coleman’s successor, gave a rousing rebuttal to the senator from Connecticut, uttering words which will no doubt one day be carved in granite below a statue in equestrian form, “in my capacity as senator from Minnesota, I object.” To be fair to Franken, he is the only Senator who can at least claim to have been a professional clown prior to winning being elected the election. Either way, senators usually read prepared remarks to a bunch of pages and a C-SPAN crew, with the biggest debate of the day being white or wheat in the cafeteria.

If Arlen Specter or Ben Nelson teaches us anything, the real measure of success for a senator today is your willingness to lie, cheat, and ultimately sell out everyone who doesn’t already own you. Just ask the former senator from Illinois, who managed to get his seat the old-fashioned way: by knocking any decent competitor off the ballot. With a performance like the one she’s put in so far, Martha Coakley is on track to becoming our first female president.