by David Weigel
When even Paul Kiel admitted it was "sad to watch," I thought the punditry door had swung shut on Katherine Harris's exciting-turned-Quixotic-turned-Jake La Motta-esque Senate race. But Jonathan Chait has the definitive take - maybe the last long piece ever - on Harris's career. She was always crazy, says Chait, but Republicans chose to overlook that as long as she was of use to them.
After Harris floated unsubstantiated rumors that Joe Scarborough (a former GOP member of Congress whom Harris viewed as a potential primary rival) may have killed one of his interns, Scarborough noted, "That was the first clue that something wasn't right with Katherine Harris."
In fact, there were plenty of clues to that effect from the very beginning. One such clue was Harris's oft-stated belief that she was the modern-day incarnation of the biblical heroine Queen Esther. ("If I perish, I perish," she would proclaim dramatically, perhaps confusing Esther with Jesus.) During the recount, Harris made this analogy to her staff so frequently that, as the Post reported, her underlings finally begged, "No more Esther stories!"