Whether it be an appointment (Joe Lieberman to UN) or Tim Johnson's situation, the Democrats Senate majority looks slimmer than ever ...

I call it the Lieberman-Johnson factor, but it could mean the lives and fortunes of more persons than only US Senator Tim Johnson (South Dakota, below) or US Senator Joe Lieberman (Connecticut, left).


How fragile the "voice of America" really is ... And it's not a matter of GOP shenanigans this time, simply the randomness of "life" and the laws that are in place ... and which are generally fair in every way.

Of course, the horrid misfortune that has befallen Senator Tim Johnson of South Dakota is what brings the fragile nature of the Democratic majority in the US Senate to mind, but having two Independents sitting in the Democratic Caucus makes that "majority" even more fragile. Even George Bush could change the balance simply by naming Joe Lieberman to replace John Bolton as our Ambassador to the United Nations. With the Governors of both South Dakota and Connecticut being Republican, it's almost a 50-50 toss of the dice as to whether the Democrats or Republicans will control the Senate in, say, six months.

Of course, President Bush would never do something so calculated as to name Senator Lieberman to the UN and God would never take Senator Johnson from us prematurely while the Vice president (who breaks ties in the Senate) is a representative of the Dark Side ... but then, stranger things have happened. The "magic bullet" that passed through President Kennedy on November 22, 1963 should remind us that anything is possible!

But happily, at last word, it appears that Senator Johnson is recovering from the surgery required by his brain hemorrhage on Thursday. He apparently suffered bleeding in his brain, which it turns out was from an intracerebral bleed caused by a condition he was born with called congenital arteriovenous malformation (and I had just learned to pronounce "Mahmoud Ahmadinejad"!), or AVM, his doctors said.

Still, I'd stay alert and posted to the news for the coming months.

The Republicans in the Senate may not simply roll over and play dead after all.

But for the moment, let's certainly pray that Senator Johnson recovers well and regains his his full faculties and that Mr. Bush doesn't decide to be generous and show bipartisanship by naming a Democrat to the empty post of Ambassador to the UN.

All it would take is for one Democrat to leave the Senate in a state wherein the Governor is a Republican for the 51-49 majority to become a 50-50 tie with the Vice prince of darkness (Dick Cheney) holding the tie-breaking vote. Brrr ...