When Barack Obama assumed the presidency, exactly one year ago, many Democrats felt that yes, we can, and maybe we will.

Now, with enough voters in the Massachusetts special election having stuffed their votes into Scott Brown‘s g-string, we would seem to have come to the end of that phase of Obama’s presidency. What we have left now is a bittersweet sense of yes, we could have.

Despite Democrats still enjoying a huge majority in the Senate, what we can now look forward to is the entirely predictable outcome of a resistible force (you can read this as either the Democratic Party or the House) meeting an immovable object (the Republican-controlled Senate, which the Republicans control, of course, by virtue of having 41 seats out of 100).

Attention now turns to when Scott Brown will be seated. (Although Larry Craig, his passions doubtless inflamed by the sight of Scott Brown in the altogether, may be thinking of it a little differently, as in “seated in a Senate bathroom stall”.)

I can’t really speak to when he will be seated. According to Massachusetts law, not for another 15 days, at least. Although Ted Kennedy was seated right away after the special election in 1962, a spokesman for the Massachusetts Secretary of the Commonwealth rejects that as a valid precedent.

I do have an opinion, though, on when he should be seated. I think the Senate should recognize, and celebrate, the truly historic nature of Brown’s election to the Senate. This is, after all, the first time that someone who is known to have posed in the nude as a young adult will be a member of the Senate. Hence my suggestion: Scott Brown should be seated only after every Senate member who so desires receives a lap dance from Brown. (Senate members who so desire should be allowed to yield their lap dance to other members. Maybe 58 extra lap dances from Scott Brown will be enough to buy Larry Craig’s vote for the healthcare bill?)

*** Update, 10:17 a.m. ***

Village Voice blogger Roy Edroso had the same thought that we did. The headline of his post this morning:
Scott Brown Wins Mass. Race, Giving GOP 41-59 Majority in the Senate.

(Looks like his post was actually published at 9 a.m. Eastern, even though it is now time-stamped 12:44 p.m., for some reason.)