Al Franken must unleash "the full Norwegian"

Howard Fineman of Newsweek has coined a phrase to describe how Al Franken should behave as he awaits certification of his Senate seat.

He calls it, "the Full Norwegian."

The Republicans are trying to provoke him. They want to turn him into their fundraising piñata now that Hillary Clinton is off to State: he will be the new embodiment of liberal evil. The Wall Street Journal, Bill O'Reilly, Ann Coulter--you name it, they're on the case. Al has to go into Full Norwegian. I asked Norm Ornstein of the American Enterprise Institute about this. He's Minnesotan and he's Al's closest personal adviser and counselor. (He helped on the book, too, and got the role of straight-man aide, grinding out gravely sensible memos to the meshugeneh candidate.) "Al can't respond. He has to be above it all," says Ornstein.

So "the full Norwegian" means to be extremely retiscent, playing everything close to the vest.