Al Franken and incumbant Norm Coleman are having themselves a nice little mid-western polite but tense battle for a seat in the Senate. You can read more about that balony here. I wont be bothering with details. The parallels to the 2000 presidential election battle in Florida is not only obvious, but painfully obvious. 8 years later and most of us still cast the hairy eyeball in various directions of blame regarding that whole snafu. *cough Ralph Nader* *cough George Bush Sr.*

Politics be damned today. Here are some great jokes about an awful election courtesy of about.com. I particularly like the irony of the first one.

“I’m good enough, I’m smart enough, and doggone it, 48 percent of the people like me!” —comedian Al Franken on what he’d advise Al Gore to say

“Last night Al Gore gave the speech of his life. Nice timing, Al.” —David Letterman

“The two candidates were said to have spent the evening pouring over the complex and detailed Supreme Court ruling. But whereas Gore was pouring over it with his eyes and mind, Bush was pouring a glass of juice over it because quote, ‘I don’t want to finish my juice.’” —Jon Stewart

“In Austin, former First Lady Barbara Bush seized the moment’s poignancy, and after a teary heart-to-heart, George W. handed over his lucky lunchbox, and went president clothes shopping.” —Daily Show e-mail

“Don’t kid yourself. George W. Bush is very excited. He’s already working on his first foreign-policy blunder.” —David Letterman

“You think late last night Al Gore was sitting up going ‘Wait, I goes an idea. It’s still not too late to impeach Clinton. I’ll become president that way! Yeah, let’s get a recount!” —Jay Leno

“The final margin in the sate of Florida: 5 votes to 4 votes. The thing about that, it’s an 11 percent victory margin for George W. Bush…but it looks like one of the most surprising things about this Florida vote is that George W. Bush got 100 percent of the African American vote.” —Jon Stewart, on the majority U.S. Supreme Court ruling joined by Justice Clarence Thomas

“He’s doing fine and recovering well. I guess he injured his hip when he and his other son, Jeb Bush, were carrying heavy boxes of uncounted ballots into the woods in Florida to bury them.” —Jay Leno, on George Bush Sr.’s hip replacement surgery

“I am not the acting president.” —An inscription on the chalkboard by Bart Simpson during the opening credits of The Simpsons

“In light of these events, America is canceled. Citizens are asked to choose between Canada and Mexico by 4:00 p.m. tomorrow” —from Saturday Night Live’s “Weekend Update”

“On Meet the Press last Sunday, Dick Cheney warned that we may be on the edge of a recession. Gov. Bush has since asked his running mate, ‘If it’s warm enough, can we have recession outside?” —from Saturday Night Live’s “Weekend Update”

“The great thing about America is everybody should vote.” —George W. Bush

“Politics, n. A strife of interests masquerading as a contest of principles. The conduct of public affairs for private advantage.” —Ambrose Bierce, The Devil’s Dictionary

“Vice President Al Gore has not yet begun to succeed, and there are growing fears that the Vice President is running out of ways to lose.” —Daily Show host Jon Stewart

“This is boring . . . now I know what people went through when they were trying to watch the basketball game and my Bronco was going up the freeway.”  —O.J. Simpson, on coverage of the Ryder truck carrying ballots to Tallahassee

“At the rate we’re going, the Inaugural Ball is going to be a surprise party.” —comedian Argus HamiltonWoo

“The legislature’s job is to write law. It’s the executive branch’s job to interpret law.” —George W. Bush

Gore “is like a character in a film who is promised in marriage to a beautiful girl but loses at the last minute in favor of the hero.” —Woody Allen, writing in Le Monde

“The usual case would have been for Dick Cheney to go to all the funerals and George Bush to do all the work. But it’s turning out the other way around. Cheney needs a patients’ bill of rights.” —Rahm Emanuel, former Clinton adviser.

“He struggles to exude authority. He furrows his brow, trying to look more sagacious, but he ends up looking as if he has indigestion. Appearing confused at his own speech, he seems like a first-grade actor in a production of ‘James and the Giant Peach.’ Are his blinks Morse code for ‘Oh, man, don’t let that teleprompter break’?” —New York Times columnist Maureen Dowd, on George W. Bush

“You’ve got Bush and Gore headed to the Supreme Court. You’ve got George W. Bush’s intelligence will be pitted against Al Gore’s honesty. This is more like a case for small claims court.” —Jay Leno

Jennifer Mienko