In an age where millions of people get off on conveying their thoughts in 140 characters (not words) or less, the art of crafting a one-word description of anything seems like a next logical step.

So if, after witnessing the U.S. Senate during the month of December, you were asked to describe that legislative chamber in one word, what would it be?

(Yes, I know, but no #@$&*($%*%*# words are allowed.)

For myself, I know what words would not be among those I would use to describe the Senate.  Here are a few of them: admirable, competent, inspirational, multi-tasking.

Some of the ones that might make my list: unbecoming, ridiculous, one-dimensional.

I think you would have to agree—no matter where you stand (perch?) on the political spectrum—that it was an undignified spectacle at best.  Is this how we as a country really want our Senate and the 100 potentates that grace it with their presence to operate?    

The most outrageous thing about the Senate is, of course, that 60-vote rule that came out of who knows where and lives on as a hallowed tradition.  I’m not going to belabor the point that nowhere in the Constitution–which, by the way, these Senators have sworn to uphold–does it say anything about having to garner 60 votes in order to move anything ahead.

But the outrageousness of the 60-vote rule became so clear as one or two senators were able to effectively dictate what large sections of the health care reform package would or wouldn’t contain.

You may well have appreciated Sen. Joe Lieberman’s threats this time around because they happened to play into what you wanted or didn’t want.  But you can rest assured that the time will come when another senator with delusions of grandeur takes a Lieberman-type position on something of vital interest to you.  Then we’ll see how much cheering you do.

And where did this apparent rule come from that you cannot consider a couple of pieces of legislation simultaneously?  Even kids in kindergarten are taught that you can use both hands at the same time.

Thus, we ended up with a result that no one really expected to actually happen.  Which is to say that the Senate never acted one way or another on the fact that the estate tax was due to expire for a year at the end of 2009, only to be reborn at 2001 levels in 2011. 

The fact that this cockamamie law was passed in the first place is a pretty big indictment of our legislators.  But all the while we kept telling ourselves that surely Congress would move to fix the year’s lapse.  They couldn’t possibly let it expire without doing something about it, we kept telling ourselves.  The possibility that they would do nothing—not act at all—was the stuff of late-night comedy shows, not something that might happen in the world’s greatest deliberative body.

It’s not like they didn’t have enough time to think about it. 

So now, the likelihood is some kind of retroactive patch, which in itself will create all kinds of weird problems. What if someone dies in that period when there is no estate tax, i.e., before retroactivity is voted on and approved?

The House at least took some action on the estate tax.  Similarly it has moved ahead on financial services reform, while the Senate tries to find its navel.

Maybe the problem is that there are too many millionaires in the Senate and they’ve just forgotten that we vote for them and then pay them to be there and get things done.

So, my one word to describe the Senate?

Dysfunctional.

So rarely do I find myself agreeing with anything Sen. Tom Coburn, R-Okla., has to say (actually, I don’t think it’s ever happened) that I feel compelled to recognize a gesture of his with which I feel in complete agreement.

Coburn likes to play the spoiler and I believe that was the impetus behind his introducing an amendment to the health care reform legislation now being debated in the Senate.  What his amendment said was that senators would have to be covered by any public option plan that ended up in the bill. 

As someone who is dead-set against any public option, Coburn surely meant this as a way of sticking it to his fellow senators (across the aisle, naturally) who are strongly in favor of a public option being included in the bill.

Senators are now covered, in the words of the New York Times, by “gold-plated coverage through the Federal Employees Health Benefits Program.”  In other words, really good coverage that Coburn probably knows many of his fellow senators would be reluctant to give up.

So perhaps even he was surprised when some Democrats not only supported his amendment but volunteered to co-sponsor it.  One particularly enthusiastic backer of this amendment was, the Times noted, Sen. Sherrod Brown, D-Ohio. 

Brown was quoted as saying, “I think it’s important that we show we mean it, we believe in it, that it works for the public and we’re willing to put our own families on it.  This says we have to go on the public option.  I think they are right.”

If those senators who really believe a public option is necessary were to follow Brown’s lead and commit to being covered by the government-run plan, it could be a game-changer, particularly in the public mind. 

A lot of the resentment against members of Congress is that the laws and regulations they make for us to live by don’t seem to need to apply to them, at least in their estimation.  

So rarely do politicians put their money where their mouth is that we seem to have forgotten that it is still possible.  This amendment would take a nice big whack at the elitism that people feel Congress accords itself as a matter of course.

If Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid is truly committed to having a public option in the final bill, then he should start a very public campaign of rounding up the 60 votes to get the amendment passed.  He might not make it, but even if the effort failed, it would be a moral victory of sorts.  And goodness knows there have been few enough of those coming out of Capitol Hill lately.

Yes, Virginia, there is a Santa Claus.  But no, it’s not likely that even the great man is going to be able to bring health care reform legislation to President Obama’s desk by Christmas.

The man that history has picked to be Santa in this particular case doesn’t look the part in any obvious way.  Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid is a tall, thin Mormon from Nevada, not a stout ruddy deliveryman from north of the Arctic Circle.

But even if Reid was blessed with Santa’s perennially amazing ability to get ready in one month’s time span the wishes and desires of millions upon millions of fervent believers, he still would have a major problem and one that would stump even Santa himself: Reid has to deal with 99 other senators, each of whom thinks he or she should be the one delivering all those goodies, or else be the one who gets to decide who’s naughty and therefore shouldn’t receive anything at all.

And let’s not forget that within the hallowed chamber of the Senate, like something out of a Dickensian nightmare, reside not one but a whole crowd of Ebenezer Scrooges whose response to Santa’s wanting to brighten the spirits of millions of uninsureds is a resounding “Bah, humbug!”

These Scrooges not only have the ability to drive an entire country full of poor Tiny Tims to distraction, but some are also actively plotting to tie Santa up in knots so badly that there is no chance whatsoever that he will be able to deliver the presents for which so many have been yearning for the last year, if not much, much longer.

The problem for Reid is that if he can’t convince at least 60 of his fellow senators how important it is to get the raw material for the presents out of the storeroom and into the workshop, he’s going to miss the very slim window of opportunity between Congress’s Thanksgiving recess and its Christmas recess.  In that case, he’ll never be able to deliver the package to President Obama in time for the holiday celebration.

But almost as daunting as getting the raw materials into the workshop is getting a finished product to put into the sleigh.  There are plenty of obstacles and slippery ice every step of the way.

First of all, those senatorial Scrooges will have unlimited opportunity to take their whacks at the unfinished product as it is being crafted.  And once they’ve finished working it over (if they do), then whatever remains has to be taken by Reid to an interim area where the sometimes mischievous elves from the House will try their hand at refashioning what the Senate has given a pounding, hoping to change it so that President Obama will get more of what he really wants for Christmas.

Then the thing has to be carted back to both the Senate and the House and put on display for all to see and decide if that’s what they want, after all. 

So you can see the deck is pretty stacked against Santa’s being able to deliver by Christmas. The danger is that even if he got the package ready after Christmas, there’s a strong possibility that he’d be so weighted down at that point by having had to eat this compromise and swallow that amendment that he just would not be able to get the sleigh off the ground.  The holiday magic would be gone.

And being stuck in the sleigh is when Santa would be particularly vulnerable.  Those senatorial Scrooges have plenty of allies (men and women who like to masquerade in 18^th century costumes and carry pitchforks) who would then have Santa right where they want him.  

For your sake, Virginia, let’s hope it doesn’t come to that.  These pitchforkers are the sort who would take a lot of pleasure in saying, “I killed Santa.”