Al Franken is now officially the junior senator from Minnesota.

Or, at least that's what Al Franken and Harry Reid would have us believe…

Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) met with Democratic candidate Al Franken late Wednesday afternoon to proclaim Franken the victor in Minnesota's Senate race…

"The race in Minnesota is over," Reid told a crowd of reporters and television cameramen who packed into the narrow room. "There's no way mathematically that's going to change."

Um, I'm not a law-knowing person (or whatever they're called), but I'm pretty sure that that's not how these things work. I don't think the senate majority leader gets to declare election victories by fiat. It's just the Supreme Court that gets to do that.

Can I get a little backing up on this, sad deflated GOP senators?

Coleman met with Senate Republican Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) earlier Wednesday.

McConnell told reporters after the meeting "it remains the view of every single member of my conference that the Minnesota Senate race will be decided in Minnesota and not in Washington."

That's what I thought.

Though, maybe McConnell should have told the same thing to Coleman. Because it appears as though he's unaware…

Former Minnesota Senator Norm Coleman is making preparations for life after office, having signed up as a paid adviser to the Republican Jewish Coalition earlier this week.

The move is the clearest indication to date that the St. Paul Republican is prepared to lose his legal challenges for the state's still vacant Senate seat.

Well, I suppose that if Coleman has already admitted defeat in his head, the least he can do is see to it that everybody else is strung along for as long as humanly possible just to make the transition as uncomfortable as possible for all concerned.

It's just common decency.