It’s going to a three-judge panel, folks!

Looked at objectively, Norm Coleman doesn’t have a case to contest the results of the recount that dislodged him from his Senate seat.   Any suit he could file is going to cost him a few million just for his own lawyers — and should he lose, which is extremely likely verging on lead-pipe cinch, he has to pay court costs as well.  Furthermore, while he pursues such a suit, Minnesota is down a senator unless Box Turtle Cornyn decides not to follow through on his threat to block Franken from being seated without Tim Pawlenty’s signature on the certificate issued by the state canvassing board Monday.

He’s been under mounting pressure to concede.   The local news media and bloggers have been pointedly reminding Coleman of his November 5th statement that, were he behind in the vote count (as Franken was at the time), he would concede.  Walter Mondale has urged him to concede.  The editorial staff of the Worthington Daily Globe, which endorsed Coleman, congratulated Franken on his win and subtly rebuked Coleman for being a jerk and not conceding.  Even Arne Carlson, a former Republican governor, has all but begged Norm to concede.

So what does Norm do?  He files an election contest:

Speaking to supporters and reporters at the State Office Building in St. Paul, Coleman said that “a true, accurate and valid result” was more important than resolving the two-month-old disputed election soon. “Something greater than expediency is at stake,” he said. “This is not just about me.”

No, it’s about your being under orders from the national Republican party leadership to keep grasping at even the pretense of winning back your seat, just because you can.  Even if it means enlisting the aid of Rupert Murdoch’s Wall Street Journal to attack and smear honest judges on its editorial page, saying things the editors know better than to utter in actual news articles.   Even if it means throwing more millions into a furnace in a battle you will lose.

The eventual reward for blowing a few million more of your dough on Fritz Knaak and Tony Trimble and their staffs?  Uncertain at this point, though Coleman’s name has come up as a possible Republican National Committee chair — which is somewhat laughable, as Norm doesn’t give orders, he takes them.  If he became RNC chair, he’d be the figurehead for some other group, though who that group would be is unknown right now — Norm’s original patrons, the Bush/Rove/Cheney crew, are all in the process of being scapegoated for Republican failures and thus run out of town.  Still, I wouldn’t feel too sorry for him — I mean, Laurie Coleman still has her Blo-N-Go empire, right?