And the only prescripition is more Conrad Burns

Yesterday's most unfortunate development was the blogsphere harping on every single little glitch in the voting. There are legitimate problems with our decentralized voting system that need to be fixed, but America is a big place and nothing ever works 100 percent of time.

If major voting problems arise in ten out of the thousands of precincts in the country and then all ten problems get condensed into one story that is repeated over and over, as it was yesterday morning and afternoon (maybe because there were no exit polls for the blogsphere to digest), it makes it appear like everything is falling apart when it isn't. It also pushes people to lose confidence in the system.

In reality, voting went pretty well and despite some close races -- including two that decided the Senate -- nobody is screaming for the lawyers today.

Despite my feelings on sensationalized stories that undermine electoral credibility, I am all for a recount in Montana. This is not because I think it will change the results or expose any unfair practices. I just think the comedic potential of a completely insane politician launching a completely inane recount is too great to pass up.

The problem is, under Montana law, Conrad Burns would have to pay for the recount if he loses it. I'm not sure how the cattle auctioning business treated him before he was Senator, but having to put your money where your mouth is can be a deterrent to even the craziest among us.

My hope is a clever television production company will foot the bill for the recount in exchange for the rights to film Burns as he follows the recount around Montana.

How could Burns, the cowboy hat-wearing equal opportunity hater who recently managed to insult Swedish people, not become the next big reality television star ? He'd be like a mixture of Borat, Flavor Flav and the girl who loses in the final round of The Bachelor. It would be the number show in the nation.

Well . . . I know I'd watch.