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While discussing how long it is taking for the Obama administration to make a policy decision on Afghanistan and how long the legislative process on health care is taking, Matthews throws this little tidbit out there.

Matthews: And by the way, these kids down in Florida, not to be the old guy about it, they’ve never watched government function before. They don’t know that it is slow. I once said to people, if you want to understand government, watch the Florida recount for five weeks because that was government.

Uh... no Chris, that's what happens when astroturfing GOP paid protesters and the Supreme Court interfere in our election process. There are days I wonder if Tweety even hears half of what comes out of his mouth.

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Rachel Maddow takes a look back at the history of fake-grassroots protests that have been orchestrated by the GOP in the past, and the debacle that was the "Brooks Brothers Riot" during the Bush v Gore 2000 election recount.

January 05, 2009 C-SPAN
Pat Doyle reported by telephone about the recount for the U.S. Senate seat from Minnesota. Followed by Al Franken's remarks on the outcome of the Minnesota recount.

Yesterday kicked off the first day of the Minnesota recount and while a whole host of ballots still need to be tabulated, things are looking good for Al Franken. There is still substantial ground to be made up, but a net gain of 43 votes is a pretty good start. Nate has more.

According to data just released by the Minnesota Secretary of State, Al Franken has gained a net of 43 votes on the first day of that state's recount process. Norm Coleman had a lead of 215 voters over Franken in Minnesota's certified, pre-recount tally; that margin is now 172 votes.

Minnesota reports that it has thus far re-counted 15.49 percent of its ballots. If the first day's results are indicative of the pace that the candidates will maintain throughout the recount process, Franken would gain a net of 278 votes over Colmean, giving him a narrow victory. For any number of reasons, however, the results reported thus far may not be indicative of future trends.

We'll just have to wait and see how things shape up. In case you forgot, a Franken victory would put us at 59 blue Senate seats (counting Lieberman and Sanders). If Franken does manage to pull this off -- indeed, even if he doesn't -- all eyes will turn to Georgia on December 2 for the run-off between the execrable incumbent Saxby Chambliss and challenger Jim Martin.

The Franken campaign is optimistic. Keep your fingers crossed.