Hmmm. Here’s an interesting start to today’s edition of ABC News The Note:

Today, let it be known that we resolve to make fun less often of a certain United States Senator.

Senator X (as we shall call "him") isn't the ONLY person in Washington who likes to hear himself talk, but there does seem to be a higher-than-average level of enjoyment emanating from his mouth and eyes as he speaks.

From his assurances that he is being "frank" and "serious," to his pledges that he is not being "facetious," this stalwart of the World's Most Deliberative Body continues to amaze us — and his colleagues — with his capacity to jabber on and on in high dudgeon and low, without any sense of how he is perceived. He will seize any opportunity to pontificate, expressing his views with fervid self-assurance and with little concern for time constraints or his audience.

It has come to our attention over the last several years (Note: we are slow learners) that our gentle teasing does not always sit well with Senator X, his staff, or his family, so we have decided to back way off.

It is, however, important to think of Senator X (and, more to the point, our "Rule of Senator X") while watching two quintessential Capitol Hill rituals today — the opening of the confirmation hearings for Alberto Gonzales to be Attorney General and the official certification of the Electoral College results by the Congress.

As you listen to members of Congress speak during those two majestic events, ask yourself: are they talking to hear themselves talk (and prove just how smart they are) or are they talking to further some public policy goal and exercise leadership?

Keep a running tally; it will be fun.

Who could they be talking about? Who on Capitol Hill uses the word "facetious" a lot?

Hmmm. From a particular senator’s appearance at the Council on Foreign Relations in October:

KRISTOF: But the policy has—I mean, the Bush administration in a sense ended the policy of strategic ambiguity. And Bush said that he would defend Taiwan.

BIDEN: By accident. [Laughter.] I'm not being facetious. [Laughter.] I am not being facetious. I am not being facetious. By accident he changed it.

Senator Joe Biden of Delaware uses the word “facetious” five other times during that CFR appearance.

Or note this profile of the senator by Michael Crowley in New Republic article from a few years ago:

Biden himself seems to worry that people aren't taking him seriously. In an odd verbal tic, he routinely interrupts himself to offer the assurance that he's "not being facetious." He opened his May 17 tax cut speech by saying: "I find this the single most fascinating debate I have been involved in in 28 years. I sincerely do. It is not a joke. I am not being facetious." Or when the anti-terrorism bill came up on CNN's "Crossfire" last month: "In full disclosure, I wrote that bill. I'm not being facetious." When "Crossfire" host Bill Press offered Biden the avuncular assurance that "[i]t's really a great bill," Biden pressed on: "No. No. I'm not being facetious. I'm not being facetious when I say that."

Of course, maybe the Note is talking about another senator. Whoever he is, teasing does not always sit well with him, his staff, or his family, so whatever you do, don’t gently tease any senators that appear to “seize any opportunity to pontificate.”