coleman-speaks-still-handThe time is nigh for Norm Coleman to say goodbye. That was the word over the weekend from Kiplinger.com, USA Today and an editor at National Review. Coleman’s bid to up-end Al Franken’s U.S. Senate recount win must stop at the Minnesota Supreme Court, wrote a Star Tribune columnist. He might push it further, as a Strib story speculates today, but Newsweek predicts Coleman’s case won’t get to the nation’s high court. Excerpts and video after the jump.

Kiplinger.com’s Washington Matters blog says,

… it’s almost time for Coleman to do the right thing and accept defeat. … It’s almost time for him — and Gov. Pawlenty — to do the right thing and give up this fruitless quest. That means letting the Minnesota Supreme Court make the final decision and not drawing this out unnecessarily with a federal challenge. There comes a point when a legitimate legal right becomes a frivolous lawsuit, and we’re almost there.

In an editorial that appears in today’s print edition, USA Today wrote:

The further Coleman’s case goes up the judicial ladder, the more strained its reasoning sounds. It is one thing to ask a trial court to review the work of election authorities to make sure they carefully followed the law and their own guidelines. It is another to say that in making a series of tough calls on individual ballots, they grievously violated some important legal or constitutional principle. … We would like to think that candidates would put the public interest ahead of their ambitions. They might choose not to litigate elections endlessly.

The National Review has led a conservative drumbeat over the last week announcing that Coleman’s parade is over. Stepping up as the weekend’s drum majorette was Washington, D.C. editor Kate O’Beirne, speaking on the Bloomberg TV show “Political Capital”:

Norm Coleman is not going to get credit for stepping aside graciously if he does it only after he’s exhausted all court appeals. It seems, I think, he was outhustled and outlawyered. It might well be time for him to acknowledge a Franken win.

O’Beirne on “Political Capital” (comments on Coleman begin at the 4:35 mark):

The Star Tribune’s Lori Sturdevant witnessed the ballot-counting at the election-contest trial last week that increased Franken’s margin to 312 votes. In the newspaper’s lead Sunday opinion column, she wrote that that outcome left Minnesotans muttering, “Enough.” She grants Coleman time for one last appeal — but no more:

A state Supreme Court ruling — and pray, make it quick — should be the final word on who won this thing. The certifying and seating of a senator ought to follow hard on its heels. … Granted, a federal court case is an option for a politician who can tap his national party’s deep pockets. But a federal case, running way into the summer and maybe fall, would amount to putting his legal right — and his party’s interest in delay — ahead of Minnesota’s constitutional right to be represented by two senators.

(A Star Tribune news article today, headlined “State’s high court may not be the last word in recount,” explores Coleman’s federal-court options, but the same experts the Strib quotes have told the Minnesota Independent the contest is most likely to end at the state’s high court.)

Newsweek rejects the assertion by Sen. John Cornyn (R-Texas and National Republican Senatorial Committee chair) that Democrats now urging Coleman to quit are hypocrites in view of Al Gore’s legal efforts after the 2000 presidential election. Labeling the two cases “apples and oranges,” Newsweek notes that Minnesota’s fight is over a lesser seat but has dragged on longer and adds “don’t expect the Supreme Court to step in this time.”

The last word from the weekend goes to the off-the-wall, satirical blog Political Championship Wrestling, which early on perceived the Coleman-Franken fight as a no-holds-barred grudge match. In PCW’s alternative universe, real-life politicians battle like professional wrestlers, dealing out bodyslams and wielding folding chairs. In a new installment, Minnesota’s Senate election rivals “celebrate being named the best feud of 2008 by restarting it. Franken and Coleman brawled at the podium mere seconds after being presented with the awards.”