The Dayton-McCain moment provides a glimpse into Dayton’s own glory days — and a Gopher State coda to the Al Franken-Joe Lieberman exchange last week that inspired an outraged McCain to claim he’d never seen a senator cut off a colleague after the allotted time for a floor speech.

MSNBC’s Rachel Maddow makes the most of the shaggy dog story that brought the ancient clip to light. [Via MinnPost]

Visit msnbc.com for breaking news, world news, and news about the economy

Franken told Minnesota Public Radio that Majority Leader Harry Reid had instructed him and others taking their turns at presiding over the Senate on Thursday to hold speakers to 10 minutes:

I was presiding over the Senate and when you’re presiding you really have no choice on what to do. The Leader, the Majority Leader, is the leader of the Senate, and he gave me — gave all of us today who were presiding — instructions that no one was to speak over 10 minutes, on either side of the aisle. …

Usually you’re allowed to do this, but just today we were told not to let it happen because there’s been some attempt to string out the debate. So I really just had no choice, and Joe knew what I was doing. Joe was surprised, but later figured out what I was doing. It was just fine. …

Joe was actually speaking on an amendment to the bill that I am totally in favor of. I agreed with every word he said for the entire 10 minutes [video]. I think he probably had only, like, 30 seconds left, and I just was kind of– he didn’t take it personally at all.

Video clips of the exchange suggested Franken was sticking it to Lieberman in retribution for the Connecticut independent exploiting his swing-vote status on the pending health-care reform bill.

It seemed by his later griping that Sen. John McCain saw it that way — perhaps in light of Franken’s Senate-floor take-down of Republican John Thune on the same issue earlier in the week.

But with Franken’s explanation, Thursday’s incident appears to fall into the category of much-ado-about-something-procedural, as happened last July when U.S. Rep. Michele Bachmann appeared to advance the birther cause by objecting to a resolution that recognized Hawaii as President Obama’s birthplace.

LIEBERMAN:   … insurance for pretty much everybody in our country–

FRANKEN: You have spoken — I’m sorry. The senator has spoken for 10 minutes.

LIEBERMAN: I wonder if I could ask unanimous consent for just an additional moment.

FRANKEN: In my capacity as senator from Minnesota, I object.

LIEBERMAN: Really. Okay, I won’t take it personally. I will ask unanimous consent that the remainder of my remarks be included in the records as if read.

FRANKEN: Without objection.

Here’s the video, via TPM. The clip includes Sen. John McCain’s grousing about Franken’s move afterwards.

It’s at least Franken’s second momentous occasion presiding over the Senate, a duty that’s rotated among the members. He was also in the role in August, when the Senate confirmed Supreme Court Justice Sonia Sotomayor.

Connecticut resident Tom Hill poses with a homemade sign at a Washington rally. Photo: David Weigel

WASHINGTON — Tom Hill’s massive sign — a white sheet taped onto a fishing pole — said it all. On one side, in thin black letters, Hill had written “STAND FIRM WITH JOE,” a call for solidarity with Sen. Joe Lieberman (I-Conn.). When Hill, who lives in Connecticut, had written that, he thought Lieberman was going to block the Senate version of health care reform. Then, shortly before the 1:30 p.m. anti-health care reform rally outside of the Senate on Tuesday, Hill found out that Lieberman’s objection to Medicare expansion had been answered, and the bill would get his support. He crossed out his old letters and wrote: “JOE’S A SKUNK! CAVED IN TO PRESSURE.”

“They put pressure on his wife, and he loves his wife, and he’s not much into the politics of personal destruction,” said Hill, looking grim. “Sixty votes doesn’t frickin’ matter. They’re gonna do it with 51. Here’s the deal — they’re either gonna shove it down our throats with 60 or up our butts with 51.”

Around 3,000 conservative activists spent Tuesday on Capitol Hill, jamming into the offices of their senators — occasionally getting lengthy, friendly meetings with Republicans — and crowding outside the Senate for a rally sponsored by Americans for Prosperity, FreedomWorks, and numerous Tea Party groups. Many had taken buses from states like North Carolina and Georgia. The crowd was as punchy, as high-stakes in its rhetoric, as it had been during any of the anti-spending, anti-Democratic Party events that have defined 2009 for conservatives. It was home, however, to some real pessimism about whether opponents of a health care reform bill could really stop the legislation. Optimism inside the Capitol and at the “Code Red” rally focused instead on the 2010 midterm elections, and the chance conservatives will have to punish the Democrats.

Anger at Lieberman — seen by Tea Party activists as much as liberals as an unpredictable actor whose decisions will make or break reform — was universal. After objecting to a public option, then a Medicare expansion, on Tuesday Lieberman signaled that he would support  a bill that lacked those features. From the stage of the “Code Red” rally, Tea Party Patriots leaders Jenny Beth Martin and Mark Meckler reported that they had tried to park themselves in Lieberman’s office until the senator showed up.

“They told us he was unavailable, and we said, ‘That’s okay, we’ll wait,’” said Meckler. “And after about three minutes the staffer came out and said, ‘You’re going to have to leave. And we said, ‘This is a public office!’ And they said, ‘You’re going to have to leave, or we’re going to have you arrested.’” The crowd — which included one activist holding a sign that asked Lieberman to “be a mensch and vote against the government takeover of health care” — booed lustily at this story of petty tyranny.

“What do you think of American citizens threatened with arrest for visiting Senator Lieberman’s office?” asked Meckler. “What do you think of your representatives threatening to arrest American citizens while bringing terrorists onto American soil? Those senators are terrorizing American citizens!”

Meckler’s story, and the crowd’s reaction, was a far cry from the attitude that had opened the day. The 8:45 a.m. start of office-to-office lobbying had been promoted as a “die-in,” during which Tea Party activists would “go inside the Senate offices and hallways, and play out the role of patients waiting for treatment in government controlled medical facilities,” and after a while “pretend to die from our untreated illnesses and collapse on the floor.” As a small crowd of activists gathered for the “die-in,” however, none of them wanted to go the full guerrilla protest. Martin told them to be polite, and on the way out, some said that they’d been rewarded with face-to-face time with their senators.

“We met with [Sen. Johnny] Isakson,” said Brad Parsons, a Georgia Tea Party activist, after leaving the Senate offices. “We talked for around 45 minutes, and he made more a lot optimistic about how certain senators are going to vote — which Democrats are still on the fence.”

Still, the late-breaking news that Lieberman would likely not filibuster a compromise bill angered and disappointed activists.

“I call him the Empty Yarmulke,” said Frederick Peterson, a Connecticut activist who’d come down to D.C. to lobby his senator. “It’s the same thing he did during the Clinton impeachment: gave one of the best speeches I’d ever heard, beautiful soaring rhetoric, rabbinical, and then he said, ‘No, I’m not going to vote to remove him from office.’ You lift up the yarmulke and there’s nothing down there.”

The disappointment spread to the conservative celebrities who came to the “Code Red” rally (to signify the state of emergency) to psyche up the troops. Laura Ingraham, the syndicated radio host, arrived at the roped-off section next to the stage in one of the red “Freedom Czar” fleeces sold on her website, and proceeded to sign autographs and pose for photos. After signing a “Palin 2012″ baseball cap, however, she dodged a friendly question from an activist and moved back toward the stage.

“What’s going to happen with the health care?” the fan asked.

“I don’t know,” shrugged Ingraham. Introduced by Rep. Michele Bachmann — an unannounced guest at the rally who inspired the loudest cheers of the day — she treated the crowd to an alternately jokey and stirring speech, beginning with a retelling of Dr. Seuss’s “How the Grinch Stole Christmas” and ending with a history lesson about the founding fathers.

While organizers and some activists were more optimistic about their chances of stopping a health care bill, some of their rhetoric put victory in the past tense — they’d won already by scaring the Democrats and delaying the bill. “Nancy Pelosi wanted to pass this bill on August 1!” said Jack Kingston (R-Ga.). The more pessimistic activists looked ahead to other Democratic priorities that they could stop in the Senate, and looked to the 2010 elections as a chance to take power away from the Democrats.

“I think we’ll take back the House,” said Curt Compton, a West Virginia activist who’d been unemployed since the start of summer. “Some people say we can take the Senate, although I’m not quite as optimistic about that yet.” The prospect of stopping the Democrats excited him more than the prospect of Republican victories. “They’re what we’ve got to work with,” he said.

Andy, a North Carolina activist who hoisted a sign that read “American Capitalism: 1492-2009 RIP,” suggested that a Republican Congress could start repealing Obama’s agenda in 2011 if they took power in the midterms. “That’s what happened with Clinton,” he said.

The more optimistic activists were already looking ahead to 2012. When the soft-spoken Sen. Tom Coburn (R-Okla.) took the stage — introduced by Bachmann as “our champion” — some in the crowd yelled, “Run for president!” Tom Hill, the disappointed Connecticut voter, used the other side of his huge sign to send Bachmann herself a message.

“PALIN/BACHMANN 2012: They’ll wring out the socialist mop!”

(WDCpix)

As a presidential candidate, Republican John McCain apparently saw former Democrat Joe Lieberman as a strong pick for running mate. Given McCain’s admission that he’s a computer “illiterate” and Lieberman’s cluelessness about technology — revealed at today’s confirmation hearing for Peter Orszag as Barack Obama’s head of the Office of Management and Budget — they might’ve made a fitting pair. On OMB transparency, Orszag said he’d like to “create a Web site that will contain information about the contracts and include PDFs or contracts themselves.” To that, Lieberman indicated he didn’t know the acronym for the ubiquitous file format: “Define PDFs.”

UPDATED with comment from Credo after the jump. 

Lieberman’s recent antics are already the subject of humor, but one observer who doesn’t find them funny is Brian at the Incertus blog, a Credo fan who called the company’s effort …

… a horrible ad, because speaking as a progressive, the last person I want to see on an ad for things that matter to me is Joe Effing Lieberman. And I really don’t want to see it with the tagline “switching is easy,” because I interpret that as an insult. … I’m guessing that Working Assets means this as a tongue-in-cheek joke, but it’s falling flat on me right now. It’s a little too soon for that kind of humor, especially since Lieberman is in a position where he can do great damage to progressive causes …

A few commentators at Democratic Underground show more forgiveness (to Credo) and willingness to crack a smile, but on balance they still seemed miffed:

Is this supposed to make me want to switch phone companies? It sooooo doesn’t. … I have Credo and this makes me think of switching back. Mission unaccomplished. … Lieberman can’t commit to a cell plan. I heard he switched to AT&T but still uses a Verizon phone.

Full disclosure: A past-due bill from Credo is sitting on my desk at the moment, unopened. (I know what it says: I received a “courtesy call” from the company yesterday.)

UPDATE: Here is comment from Becky Bond, political director at Credo, via email:

Before the Senate caucus vote on Lieberman, we urged a few hundred thousand
of our members (who were constituents of Senators or Senators-elect eligible
to participate in the democratic senate caucus vote) to ask the caucus to
strip Lieberman of his committee chair.

Lieberman has been a terrible chair of this critical committee. He has not
held the Bush administration accountable for its crimes. He has supported
endless war. He did not defend the American people from government spying.
This was an accountability moment for Lieberman, and we hoped the Senate
caucus would do the right thing. They did not. Likely, this campaign was
what the huff post commenter was talking about.

The ad was a tongue in cheek attempt to get the attention of people who,
like us, are infuriated by Lieberman’s stands on issues. The idea was this.
The nation’s eyes last week were on Lieberman, who is famous for switching
his liberal ideas for conservative ideology. You can switch too, but in
support of progressive ideals. The ad was successful in getting people’s
attention. But clearly some people did not get the joke.

To be honest, the first I heard of people not understanding the ad was when
I was checking my RSS feed of the Minnesota Independent. I’m reading you
constantly for news of the Senate recount!

By the way, Center for Independent Media is one of the 50 groups our members
are supporting this year.
http://credomobile.com/Mission/MissionCauses.aspx

Tell your readers who are members that they have until Dec. 31 to vote for
you in the distribution of our donations
http://www.workingassets.com/Voting/Default.aspx

On NPR’s “Wait, Wait… Don’t Tell Me!,” Lieberman was featured in a call-in quiz in which Oakdale resident Alissa Banff (unsure on the spelling; no transcript exists) had to name the news story from the past week that matched the song, “Let’s Kiss and Make Up.” Once she guessed the correct answer, host Peter Sagal said (taking oodles of creative license):

Lieberman did a lot of things this year to annoy Democrats, but he did one very smart thing: He annoyed Democrats rather than anyone who might do something about it.

Leiberman campaigned enthusiastically for John McCain, of course. He implied Barack Obama was an unpatriotic Marxist and he personally set fire to the Democratic National Committee offices and he wrote and performed the YouTube hit song, “The Democrats are a Bunch of Terrorist-Loving Weenies.” But, the Senate Democrats were feeling magnanimous. They welcomed Lieberman back and they let him keep his prized committee chairmanship. Lieberman reacted by actually slapping Harry Reid and then saying, “You still forgive me?” And Reid said, “Sure,” and Leiberman walked behind him and gave him a wedgie and said, “How ’bout now?”

WWDTM regular Adam Felber responded by saying Leiberman has “lost all credulity,” yet Democrats keep giving him second and third chances. He then likened him to Gollum, the character from the film adaptations made of J.R.R. Tolkien’s novels: “And he’s actually started looking like him, too!”

Listen here (starts at 4:33).

In a web-only clip, Saturday Night Live’s Andy Samberg, playing a hot-tempered Rahm Emmanuel, Barack Obama’s selection for chief of staff, brought up Lieberman:

UPDATE: It apparently was here for today’s End the Fed rally at the Federal Reserve Bank. The sky advert was last seen in these parts at the tail end of the Republican National Convention. The timing and location made a certain amount of sense. But on a Saturday two-and-a-half weeks after the election, with a U.S. Senate recount in progress? What does Ron Paul have to do with that? Why here? Why now? Is this any better a use of fuel than Detroit’s Big Three auto execs each jetting into D.C. on private planes? Or does it simply signal that with the recount the Twin Cities have again achieved a critical mass of TV news crews? 

Granted, Franken’s presence now in Minnesota might not be necessary or even helpful. But his absence uncomfortably recalls Al Gore’s fiddling while George W. Bush’s forces burned through Florida during the 2000 presidential recount. Shouldn’t Al be here, if for no other reason than to make use of his USO chops to rally the troops from behind the front lines? But perhaps Franken went to D.C. for another reason altogether.

Franken has just learned a very hard lesson in how every single vote matters. Perhaps he took it upon himself to travel across the country to cast a provisional ballot in the Senate Democrats’ vote this morning on whether to strip U.S. Sen. Joe Lieberman, I-Conn., of his committee chairmanship. (It wouldn’t have made a difference after all — Lieberman won handily.) After all, Lieberman helped Coleman during the campaign, so a Franken “no” vote would only have been returning the favor. And Franken wouldn’t want to risk a homemade absentee ballot, mailed from Minnesota, getting improperly rejected.

OK, didn’t happen — as far as we know. But crazier things have been done and said. Franken’s tangled fortunes with Lieberman — the Dems’ hopes for 60 Senate votes rides on both their backs — go back at least as far as the simpler times of 2000, when each man joked about a Franken-Lieberman presidential ticket.

“I was eager to get to the bottom of the serious allegations against Halliburton and other contractors — potentially the biggest wartime rip-off in our country’s history,” the statement from Lautenberg reads. “But Norm Coleman and the Republican leadership of the committee simply refused to to investigate. Even after multiple requests from me and my colleagues to get the committee to do its job and get to the bottom of it — they refused.”

Lautenberg states that he wrote nine letters to the committee leadership seeking an investigation, but was rebuffed. He links the lack of scrutiny to the fact that VP Dick Cheney was formerly the chief executive of Halliburton, the largest recipient of Iraq contracts. “When it was time to choose between protecting taxpayer dollars and our troops or protecting Dick Cheney from embarrassment, Norm Coleman chose Dick Cheney,” the statement concludes.

The two campaigns are each running television ads sparring over the issue. Here’s the Franken spot:

And the Coleman rebuttal: