Senator James Inhofe (R-OK) called the newly-certified senator from Minnesota, Al Franken, a "clown" on Wednesday and said Franken's presence in the Senate -- which gives the Democrats a "super-majority" of 60 votes -- won't be enough to pass health care reform.

"I’ll tell you what a lot of people are thinking, and that is it looks like things are going to be over and we are going to get the clown from Minnesota,’’ the Tulsa World quoted Inhofe as saying. “They are not going to get more than 35 votes.’’

Challenged by a reporter to clarify that he had just referred to Franken as a clown, Inhofe responded that, yes, he had done that.

“I didn’t mean to be disrespectful. I don’t know the guy, but … for a living he is a clown,’’ said Inhofe. “That’s what he does for a living.’’

Inhofe was evidently referring to Franken's two-decade-long career as a comedy writer for Saturday Night Live, during which he sometimes appeared on camera as a performer.

In the 1990s, Franken began to shift his attention from comedy to politics, penning best-selling books such as Lies and the Lying Liars who Tell Them: A Fair and Balanced Look at the Right, and Rush Limbaugh is a Big Fat Idiot and Other Observations.

After an eight-month legal battle against incumbent Norm Coleman, Franken was certified the winner of Minnesota's 2008 senatorial race this week, with a vote margin of little more than 300 votes.

"How utterly disrepectful and shameful," Carl Bentham writes on his Talking Points memo blog. "Yes, Al Franken is a comedian and he has made a lot of stupid jokes. But he's also proven himself to be intelligent and knowledgeable about policy. To dismiss him as 'a clown' is an ugly ad-hominem attack, a distortion of his character, the sort of commentary one would expect from an pitiful schoolyard bully rather than a United States Senator."

rawstory.com/blog/2009/0...h-care-bill/