You get the idea that Al Franken isn’t, well, serious about his job. Fox News reports:

He’s good enough, he’s smart enough, but doggone it — he just can’t keep his eyes open for Senate confirmation hearings. Al Franken, the onetime comedian and current Democratic senator from Minnesota, used his position on the vaunted Judiciary Committee on Tuesday to doodle a lifelike bust of Sen. Jeff Sessions, the committee’s ranking Republican, as Sessions raked Supreme Court nominee Elena Kagan over the coals. But it wasn’t all fun and games for the former “Saturday Night Live” star — Franken also found time to get in a good nap during the first day of hearings Monday.

Yes, Franken is neglecting his duties and not fulfilling his constitutional obligations to provide advice and consent (at least not advice and consent based on reasoned consideration). But, when you think about it, neither are his Democratic colleagues. They may not be doodling (well, not after this report), but neither are they doing anything productive in the hearings — like attempting to discern Kagan’s views on Supreme Court precedent. At least the Republican senators were trying. As Robert Alt of Heritage put it:

From the outset, Kagan ran away from every attempt to characterize her political and philosophical views. Senators Sessions (R-AL), Hatch (R-UT), Kyl (R-AZ), Grassley (R-IA), and Graham (R-SC) pressed Kagan on the nature of her political ideology and approach to legal analysis. She generally refused to admit any specific views and even went so far as to claim that she did not know what the term “progressive” meant.

If she’s not going to answer any important questions, then doodling or taking a nap might be forgiven.