A Senator Is Born: "Tom Coburn is proud of the number of babies he has delivered, many of them on weekends while serving in the House of Representatives. But his participation in the miracle of life can't compete with his much-more-miraculous ability to walk on water. No one has actually seen him skip lightly across the waves, but after his remarkably thorough job of burning bridges at the close of his stint in the House, walking on water is the only way Coburn could have made it back across the Potomac."

"'I don't think now is the right time for me to comment on filibusters,' he says to a question about a possible rules change that will have to be entertained on the first day of the session. But it was pretty clear what he thought about filibusters in 1999 in the House, when he staged what amounted to one of his own. He and fellow term-limiter Mark Sanford (now governor of South Carolina) offered 115 amendments to the agriculture bill, and succeeded in changing the way costs of appropriations bills were calculated before passage.

"Asked what his legislative priorities are, he is vague: 'Build the staff. Get to know the people. Get to talk to people. Get out there and show people that I am not the villain that they think I am right now.'"