Funnyman Franken needs your prayer-offerings

If, as a yeomanly United States senator, Al Franken manages to retain his famous sense of humorous sanity, it will be nothing short of a minor miracle.

Honest to God, I feel sorry for the guy. He seems to want to legislate, in earnest, for the benefit of Minnesotans as well as the nation -- but, to quote King Lear, O, that way madness lies.

That's not to suggest that Franken is naive. He's been around the political block and he knows -- in large but still academic part -- what's in store. So, in best junior-senatorial fashion, he has chosen to start off by fitting in.

"Sen.-elect Al Franken’s first day on Capitol Hill was Not A Circus, and the soon-to-be junior senator from Minnesota was Not Funny At All," riffed the Politico. "Those were the messages Team Franken toiled to convey to the press and the public Monday, tamping down anything that resembled a spectacle surrounding Franken’s arrival and stressing the former comedian’s sober side."

Which he may wish, soon, to nevertheless intoxicate with some sanity-saving levity. For it's further reported, with a few realistic modifications added here, that yesterday he met with "Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid to discuss the agenda" -- legislative delays, nomination holds, filibuster threats, bribery negotiations, counterproductive amendments, private airings of petty grievances, and in general the wholesale sell-out of the democratic will -- "for the week ahead."

Said peppy Franken-adviser Eric Schultz: "I think you’re going to find, as Minnesotans found, that he’s a serious, thoughtful person who wants to come to Washington to work" -- and try not to leave drooling, babbling, sedated, and straitjacketed.

But perhaps Franken is just playing it "solemn and staid," as he was additionally described yesterday, while he quietly goes about collecting plentiful comedy material for "Saturday Night Live" or a blockbuster Michael Moorelike film, "Dude, Where's My Democratic Senate?"

Whatever the case I wish him all the best, and I pray for his sanity.