It's like, this look likes the country I grew up in, but no - Al Franken would never be a senator … We have entered a place to where there isn't statesmanship anymore.' It's like we've slipped through a wormhole. 'It shows how crazy our country has gone,' he began. But Glenn Beck, in his semiliterate way, heaped on enough abuse to keep Billo's fans satisfied for the moment. Demure guest host Monica Crowley seemed bemused by the Minnesota outcome. Sadly, the most notorious Franken antagonist, Bill O'Reilly, was absent from the airwaves on the evening of Franken's victory. Second: Franken's ascension to the Senate is tainted by the process, which his opponent insisted on prolonging. First: Franken himself is wild, spiteful, menacing, bigoted and, most of all, deranged (as must be anyone who voted for him). Wasting no time on gracious concessions, they concentrated on two themes. Upon learning that Franken had prevailed in a unanimous decision by his home state's highest court, the usual suspects on Fox News Channel and in the Limbaugh wasteland of radio immediately threw up a barrage of furious invective.

Still less surprising (although vastly more entertaining) was the simultaneous breakdown of nearly all of Franken's adversaries on the right, whose regurgitated insults, whining complaints and exploding noggins revealed nothing about him or his victory - and everything about them. It wasn't surprising when, after seven months of legal wrangling, the Minnesota Supreme Court declared that Al Franken had won the 2008 Senate race against incumbent Norm Coleman.

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