Sean Hannity, hearing the news that Al Franken was the new junior senator from Minnesota, called him a "liar and a lunatic." Michelle Malkin described him as "an angry, unstable man."
Expect that to continue being the right-wing media meme about Franken- It's uttered, even by respectable conservatives, too. Like former Bush speechwriter Michael Gerson who called him, "The Vulgarian at the Gate," writing that Franken's election would "actively push our culture toward vulgarity and viciousness."
But Franken surprised everybody. Known for being combative, not suffering fools gladly, and publicly confronting right-wing personalities like Newt Gingrich, or Bill O'Reilly or Hannity, the word was that he'd never make it in the day-by-day grind of face-time politics.
Grokking the difference between the Minnesota of his upbringing, and the stomping grounds of his adult life, the ironic Manhattan environs of late-night teevee, Franken kept hold of his passions.
He ran a smart, disciplined campaign which handled itself capably coming up from behind, and navigating the inevitable trip-wires that 30 years as a New York comedy-writer, satirist, and performer (Saturday Night Live, 1975 to 1980; 1985 to 1995) might bring in a high profile campaign in blue/red Minnesota.
He can learn (he was a math-jock at Harvard) and he did. He drilled down into the agricultural and other rural and suburban issues in which a serious candidate must be conversant to win in Minnesota outside St. Paul.
Franken smarmed over his acerbic wit; mastered the art of the grange dinners, meat-shoots, coffee grip 'n' goes; and learned the pre-measured language of stump-speak, and retail politics.
He bored-down his rhetoric to overcome his dangerous, "potty-mouthed" comic past. Irony and satire are no man's land for politicians. But as anyone who attempts them will tell you, only half the audience gets it, the rest take it at face value and are offended. (Conservatives are especially immune to "getting it.")
The satirist's problem is, as Michael Kinsley written: "Any joke that doesn't offend at least a few people is unlikely to be funny. You have to hope that many more will be amused than are offended. You have to come as close as you can to the line of justifiable, widespread offense without crossing it." (Satirist/politician is near oxymoron-itude, anyway. Rarely does the inclination for both dwell in the same person).
Coleman called Franken "completely unfit for public office" because of his comedy career. The meme word was, and still is, "clown."
No Bozo he, the candidate showed how wrong they were in their portrayal of him as uncontrollably petulant. He kept his head down and his mouth shut even during the long, exasperating 8 months of the recount and the post election legals.
"The best thing I can do is prepare myself in every way so that when I get to Washington, I will hit the ground running," he told reporters mildly.
It was all a tough test, and he passed with flying colors. (we just hope he gets his public sense of humor back eventually.)
He says it all started in his Harvard days, but it began in earnest in 2002, when Franken's friend, liberal Minnesota Senator Paul Wellstone died with his family in a plane crash in the last days of his tight re-election bid against Norm Coleman.
Coleman's campaign, with help of former governor Jesse Ventura, Fox News, and talk radio spun Wellstone's spirited memorial as a ghoulish partisan election rally that was accepted as factual even by media outlets who should know better.
Public perception, distorted through the lens of these media of the sad, but admittedly joyous, raucous event helped drag the aged, last-minute fill-in Walter Mondale down the path to losing the election. Franken was at the memorial, and accounts it minute by minute, in his 2003 book Lies, and the Lying Liars Who Tell Them. A Fair and Balanced Look at the Right, and here.
Franken writes there was no widespread jeering: "Along with everyone else, I cried, I laughed, I
cheered. It was, to my mind, a beautiful four-hour memorial. I didn't boo. Neither did 22,800 of the some 23,000 people there."
But Coleman won, and Franken was pissed; the bitter experience hardened his old ambition to go into politics.
(photo: Paul Wellstone)
Talk radio's part in this targeted, cynical and corrupt effort to elect Coleman led Franken to help found Air America, and go on the air in the dispiriting year of 2004 just prior to re-election by a petulant George Bush who eked out a victory by Karl Rove's enticing a couple hundred thousand previously non-voting evangelicos out of their trailors to vote in Ohio.
(That election politicized lots of people, and led, ultimately, to an Obama presidency, and a new American majority-, but that's another story).
His Air America show is where so many of us got to know Franken as a political thinker, and liberal spokesman activist. A solid, medium progressive, he and co-host Katherine Lanpher introduced listeners to Howard Fineman, Jonathan Alter, Dahlia Lithwick, Norm Ornstein, Tom Oliphant, David Brock, Joe Conason, Christy Harvey, Joshua Micah Marshal, Hendrik Hertzberg and other influential liberals and media types most of us had only experienced as bylines.
Not always riveting radio, Franken could drone, and he did. But he was frequently laugh outloud funny and more important: he showed real policy chops - an important qualifier for a serious national candidate.
Al Franken's no doctrinaire lefty as he's accused of by conservative critics. He's a moderate liberal who supported the Iraq invasion at first, and has sometimes been friendly to the centrist Democratic Leadership Council.
"Yeah," he told AlterNet, "I'm not that left-wing ... My views on most things would jibe with most Americans. On most issues, most Americans are certainly left of this [Bush] Administration. Not necessarily left, but more common-sensical. Given a chance, they'd spend less on the military, they wouldn't make more nuclear weapons, they would want to increase environmental regulation rather than reduce it, they would want to spend more on education and health care, they would enforce corporate-responsibility laws and make corporations pay their taxes, all those kinds of things. Crazy talk."
We're sure President Obama can count on Franken's votes, but he's still relatively unknown where he'll come up on the political spectrum in the US Senate. Republicans and Democrats have watched warily as Franken inched closer to the holy, select, powerful, and allegedly collegial chamber that is the US Senate. How he's accepted by the Republican Senators who have been ripping him for the last year, how he'll navigate in Washington will be fascinating to watch.
Watch for Part 2: how he got there
I remember coolin’ out in the basement of my cousins’ house in the 70’s. Late at night, tokin’ weed and watchin’ SNL. If Al wrote that shit he has to be cool.
Posted by: Breezy | July 02, 2009 at 11:36 PM
Good article, Michael. I, too, hope he is able to display his wit sometime soon...I would think a sense of humor would be vital to living a working in DC.
The best radio he ever did was when he went over to Iraq to entertain the troops. Seeing injured soldiers really tore him up, and his phone calls to Katherine were filled with his voice, thick with emotion.
I decided to try to check out BillO tonight to see what he was saying about this, and low and behold there was Mike Huckabee, filling in for him. I had to avert my eyes.
Posted by: sparky | July 03, 2009 at 12:01 AM
A math jock? Did I read that right? I might have thought writing, history or theatre, but never math!
I guess he really is the renaissance man we've been waiting for.
I never liked him much on SNL but sure do like him now. The turning point for me was his radio show and a look inside his soul - as Sanford would probably say.
And my like for him was sealed when I saw him take Billo to task at the book fair on LA. That was a glorious moment.
Congress is a different gig, however. The arrogance and self-interest on the HIll seem to be impervious to the good intentions of people. I wish him luck. Truly, as things are going, I don't hold out a lot of hope.
Posted by: joanie | July 03, 2009 at 10:41 AM
Joanie, if you really want someone who can look into somone's soul, nobody did it like the Bushler. I'll bet Putin is still laughing about that.
Posted by: Drew | July 03, 2009 at 11:00 AM
Franken wrote about 10X more than he performed on SNL, back when it was great. It will interesting to see of he turns out to be one of those down in the weeds hardworking senators as Ted Kennedy and Hillary turned out to be, or whether he'll use the senate to get elsewhere else like Obama. Despite the Republican grousing, he's intellectually substantive. Another thing, he has a great family and very stable marriage. Probably won't see Franken skanking a staffer, you never know, I suppose.
Posted by: Mark C. | July 03, 2009 at 01:51 PM
"I decided to try to check out BillO tonight to see what he was saying about this, and low and behold there was Mike Huckabee, filling in for him. I had to avert my eyes."
I doubt if Huckabee attacked Sen. Franken - I like his stand on the issues of the day. If BillO doesn't say anything about this slow breaking news story, we'd all be better off. All it would be is another distraction to take our eyes off of more of the doings of this wanna-be despot Administration.
Posted by: KS | July 04, 2009 at 09:28 PM
So an administration is now a despot? You're still clueless, klueless.
But, to give you a chance at redemption:
Tell me his stand on the issues of the day.
Posted by: joanie | July 04, 2009 at 10:45 PM
No, I'd say that your'e the clueless one, Ph(J)oanie. I don't need no stinkin' redemption from a left wing ideologue. His stand on what issues of the day ?
Look up the definition of despot and demonstrate how this administration is not that way (like I expect a straight and truthful answer).
Posted by: KS | July 04, 2009 at 11:09 PM
Didn't think you knew anything about the issues of the day.
Posted by: joanie | July 04, 2009 at 11:51 PM
Looked up, now tell us KS, how does The President of the United States of America meet this definition.
Main Entry:
despot
Pronunciation:
\ˈdes-pət, -ˌpät\
Function:
noun
Etymology:
Middle French despote, from Greek despotēs master, lord, autocrat, from des- (akin to domos house) + -potēs (akin to posis husband); akin to Sanskrit dampati lord of the house — more at DOME, POTENT
Date:
1585
1 a: a Byzantine emperor or prince b: a bishop or patriarch of the Eastern Orthodox Church c: an Italian hereditary prince or military leader during the Renaissance2 a: a ruler with absolute power and authority b: a person exercising power tyrannically
Posted by: M.Steele | July 05, 2009 at 12:23 AM
A clear sign of Franken’s ability will be the anti- Franken fanatical screed he attracts. Just look at the interest the President garners.
Posted by: M.Steele | July 05, 2009 at 12:29 AM
He's good enough, he's smart enough, and, doggone it, people like him!
Posted by: Evelyn | July 05, 2009 at 09:29 AM
"Didn't think you knew anything about the issues of the day."
Easy out, Ph(J)oanie - pretty much as I predicted. You haven't raised anything about how this Administration is not despot. Yawn..
Steele - We are losing our financial freedom - by the Government buying up banks and GM at the public's expense. The Stimulus was a sham - mostly political payoff in a grandiose way. The POTUS wants to sign into law a public plan for Health Care that will eventually give us cradle to grave coverage by the Government and big brother capabilities. Then a Cap & Tax system against the wishes of the majority of Americans, whose tax money will be used who will have no say on these matters. That matches up well with the definition of despot - "a person exercising power tyrannically". Awaiting your excuses, with the acknowledgement that there are NO excuses for this bureaucratic bullshit.
Posted by: KS | July 05, 2009 at 02:04 PM
"A clear sign of Franken’s ability will be the anti- Franken fanatical screed he attracts. Just look at the interest the President garners.
Posted by: M.Steele | July 05, 2009 at 12:29 AM"
By that rationale, then George W Bush must have been the 'second coming.'
Posted by: Puget Sound | July 05, 2009 at 03:27 PM
No, he just thought he was.. :)
where ya been, Puts?
Posted by: sparky waves goodbye to Palin | July 05, 2009 at 04:29 PM
Like you, seeing America.
Started off with a little Portland, OR, Salt Lake, Utah, then parts of MT and WY.
Just got back from a stint down in California. 108-109-107 then cooling down to the 101 temps.
Man that is hot.
Catch you all later.
Posted by: Puget Sound | July 05, 2009 at 05:09 PM
Puget Sound,
No, inferring “ability” and “fanatical screed” synonymous is your construction. I’m commenting on the early attacks on the man before is able to take office. These attacks are clearly meant to cast him in a certain light and say more about his detractors than of him. After all he needs time to say, start an unwarranted war, or maybe peer from a plane as a major city fall into ruin or any number of mistakes while in office to merit criticism.
Posted by: M.Steele | July 05, 2009 at 05:35 PM
"Lighten up, Francis" (M.Steele)
No need to gird your loins and look for slights.
It's the day after the 4th, time spent with famly/friends, and we should all be in a good mood.
Take Care.
PS: Thank you for your service.
Posted by: Puget Sound | July 05, 2009 at 05:59 PM
Ok, did you see anything worth reporting?
Posted by: M.Steele | July 05, 2009 at 06:05 PM
It looks as if many of my neighbors didn’t stray far from home this year. There has never seen so many light shows in this area. Sitting on my deck I couldn’t view an empty portion of the sky.
Hope you had a grand 4th.
Posted by: M.Steele | July 05, 2009 at 06:16 PM
As you know from your military travels, lots of great places to live in this country. WY has some beautiful country esp. up in Sheridan. Same with MT. Nice friendly people.
The big news in Cali is the IOU's. If you get one, it pays at 3.75 percent. Right now, some of the big banks say that they will accept 'em but I wonder how long that will continue. IOU's were issued in the early 90's by Cali, but they didn't have junk bond rating status and it was for a short period of time. Cali also has some water issues.
One thing about Salt Lake is you notice all of the large families. Lots of parents with kids. (insert your joke here, coils)
I understand the Mormon influence and all but it is a striking difference from what you see in Seattle. Families up here -if you have kids at all- tend to be in that 1-2 range.
Oh well, enough of that.
Good luck to all.
Posted by: Puget Sound | July 05, 2009 at 06:46 PM
Safe travels.
Posted by: M.Steele | July 05, 2009 at 07:00 PM
That is because the Mormons believe that souls of departed people who were not baptized as Mormon are going to languish in Purgatory unless they receive that baptism. So, every child that they have has the soul of a departed person and can then become Mormon, and proceed to the several stages of Heaven. That's why they are experts in geneology...they research for relatives who were not Mormon.
That is not a joke, by the way. It is what they truly believe.
If you don't have HBO, you should rent the 4 seasons of Big Love...about families split by those who were raised on poligimous compounds, and those who were raised in the "traditional" Mormon temple.
Posted by: sparky | July 05, 2009 at 07:09 PM
Puget is going Mormon on us... That' be 10% please.
Posted by: Coiler | July 05, 2009 at 07:25 PM
Sen Franken lets T Boone Pickens have it at a lunch per Politico this morning.
"Five years after he put his money behind the Swift Boat ads that helped tanked John Kerry’s presidential campaign, Senate Democrats gave T. Boone Pickens a warm welcome at their weekly policy lunch Thursday.
...
Sen. Al Franken managed to make time for the lunch – but then let Pickens have it afterward.
According to a source, the wealthy oil and gas magnate and author of “The First Billion is the Hardest” stepped up to introduce himself to Franken in a room just off the Senate Floor after the lunch ended
Franken, who was seated talking to someone else, did not stand when Pickens said hello. Instead, Franken began to berate him about the billionaire’s financing of the Swift Boat ads in 2004.
According to a source, the confrontation grew heated.
Said Franken spokeswoman Jess McIntosh: “It was a lively conversation.”
Pickens was on the Hill to address the Senate Democratic Policy Committee lunch about his plans to use wind energy to lower the nation’s dependence on oil and gas. But the thought of Pickens being invited to a Democratic event angered some on the Hill and in the liberal blogs."
Posted by: Puget Sound | July 31, 2009 at 12:22 PM
I think both Pickens and Franken need to be invited to the WH for a beer or two - ale to the king.
Posted by: Duffman | July 31, 2009 at 12:26 PM
good thinking, duff.
that would work out real well if we could put one of those t boone picken style 'wind farms' adjacent the table. given the ability of vp slow joe biden to pontificate i am sure we could accrue a nice bit of energy for this winter.
Posted by: Puget Sound | July 31, 2009 at 12:43 PM