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Al Franken is the Right's New Punching Bag
Jim Mone / AP Photo
With Tuesday's Minnesota Supreme Court decision, Al Franken's long journey to the Senate may be coming to an end. But his unique role as the Democrat the right loves to hate the most will continue no matter what.
Note: The following was written by Benjamin Sarlin in January, after Al Franken was initially certified the winner of the Minnesota senate race. All interviews were conducted at the time.
Though legal wrangling may prevent him from being immediately seated, comedian Al Franken was certified the winner in Minnesota's Senate race today with a lead of 225 votes, putting an end to a weeks-long recount battle. With the usual hapless Democrats failing to generate much outrage, Franken is in line for an even more prestigious honor: the right wing's favorite punching bag.
"Al Franken is a very tempting target because he is so outrageous," said Republican strategist Brad Blakeman. "It's similar to Joe Biden—we hope that Al Franken is the gift that keeps on giving."
Bill O'Reilly called Franken "a smear merchant and a rank liar unqualified for any elected office," and "a far left extremist" who "traffics in hate."
Franken's prominence comes at a time in which Republicans have struggled to find an easy Democratic bogeyman. Barack Obama is still overwhelmingly popular. Hillary Clinton, formerly the party's nemesis, earned a newfound respect among conservatives as the voice of moderation on withdrawal from Iraq. Rod Blagojevich is too local. Harry Reid and Nancy Pelosi are a particular favorite of Matt Drudge, but relentless attacks on them failed to prevent heavy losses in 2006 and 2008. Ted Kennedy, suffering from brain cancer, is off limits.
So Franken provides an inviting target. His style of politics runs directly counter to the civility preached by the incoming president. Franken is author of the bestsellers Rush Limbaugh Is a Big Fat Idiot and Other Observations and Lies and the Lying Liars Who Tell Them, which trashed conservative talk hosts like Bill O’Reilly and baited some to respond with their own heated attacks.
Even while on the campaign trail, where Franken tried to project a senatorial gravitas, he found time to hit the right where it hurt. Politico reported that he was behind one of the most brutal Saturday Night Live sketches of the election, in which John McCain approves a series of increasingly horrifying attack ads against Obama ("Barack Obama has fathered two black children...in wedlock").
If Obama's strategy is to dial back the blue/red civil war to a detente, Franken's is to escalate it to World War III. Now Franken is poised to become that rare politician whose very existence is a wedge issue to be exploited.
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For GOP talkers and apparatchiks, Franken's resume is almost too good to be true. He pushes such time-honored Republican buttons as hatred of Hollywood entertainers (in addition to Franken's own celebrity, many top stars have donated to his campaign), anti-elitism (he’s a Harvard graduate), and prudishness (his dirty jokes were a constant source of attacks during the Senate campaign). As if that weren't enough, commentators like Sean Hannity have suggested that the complicated recount process has been less than aboveboard, raising the specter that a Franken win will be illegitimate.
FOX News commentator Bernard Goldberg, who has been criticized in Franken's books, believes Franken is a natural target for conservatives, given his high profile and combative style.
"I think what irks conservatives more about Franken than other liberal Democrats is that a lot of liberal Democrats are nice guys," Goldberg said. "Franken is seen as a mean-spirited, nasty guy—a smart ass."
Goldberg added that it's "sort of fun to take shots at him," but if Franken adopts a "grown-up" attitude in the Senate, he might spare himself becoming the right's favorite nemesis.
"It's going to be a two-way street," he said.
One Republican political consultant, Stephen Marks, warned that GOP officials should lay off Franken unless he provides clear justification for their wrath, as pre-emptive attacks could come off as “desperate” and work to the Democrats' advantage.
Marks added that Franken will likely be on his best behavior after he takes office.
“Don’t expect anything crazy out of him,” Marks said. “The last thing he needs to do is reinforce the image of a comedian who got elected. He has to get the respect of his peers in the Senate.”
Even before his Senate run, however, Republicans experimented with using Franken as a proxy attack on other politicians. In 2006, the Ohio GOP issued a news release attacking Senate candidate Sherrod Brown for associating with Franken that included a Photoshopped picture of the comedian in a diaper. During this year’s campaign, Michelle Malkin described him as "an angry, unstable man." And Bill O'Reilly called him "a smear merchant and a rank liar unqualified for any elected office," and "a far left extremist" who "traffics in hate."
After the recount started and the race became the only electoral game in town, conservative pundits piled on, too. "The reason he won't quit is he doesn't know how to get a real job," Rush Limbaugh told his listeners. "The idea that this country is now a sitcom is exemplified by how close that stupid election was in the first place."
Whether Obama will succeed in installing a new civility is anyone's guess, but if there's anything Franken's victory makes clear it's that the president-elect's plan for reconciliation is not the only game in town. Look for the Al Franken show to be the tonal opposite of change we can believe in.
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Benjamin Sarlin is a reporter for The Daily Beast. He previously covered New York City politics for The New York Sun and has worked for talkingpointsmemo.com.
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You quote commentator Hannity (a laughable nincompoop), Malkin (a moron), "we'll do it live" O'Reilly , and the comedian Limbaugh... why say anything at all?
Franken will soon join those other giants of the Congress, Nancy Pelosi, Harry Reid, and Barney Frank, in helping Obama to explode the deficit and wreck the US economy.
Whats not to like?
This comment has been removed by The Daily Beast's editors.
Hmmmm, a Democrat actually having the teensy bit of spine needed to call Republican thugs 'lying liars'? Actually, Mr. Sarlin, that's the pitch-perfect tone of change I can believe in. If Franken were in Harry Reid's shoes the past few years, Bush/Cheney would have gotten the impeachment they deserved.
The republicans and their far right smear merchants (Oreally?, InsHannity, Coke head Coulter, and downer poppin' Rush) never could figure out how to handle a liberal who stood up for themself. They fear anyone with the intelligence to do more than just talk over someone.
With or without Franken in the Senate, the viscious political machines will continue to attack each other while perpetuating the eternal campaign.
Engaging in political warfare is so much easier than working to solve some of the many serious problems that face us.
Shame on our politicians for their lack of accomplishment. Shame on us for demanding so little of our elected officials.
I like that post!
Benjamin Sarlin might have actually benefited from reading one or two of Franken's books before writing this wildly inaccurate article.
Franken's underlying ideas are always serious, sensible and fair minded, (and well researched and precisely documented with serious sources) though he may express them in ways that are funny or sarcastic. In the latter case, it is almost (always?) richly deserved. It is clear that he has the best interest of this country and its individual citizens in mind. We cannot, after the painful last 8 years, say that for the Republicans and their media henchmen/women. I am looking forward to seeing Al get some good stuff done in D.C.: hey, he's smart enough, and people like him!
You use the phrase "usual hapless Democrats". Huh? Have you been paying attention? That's the old CW when pundits said Karl Rove was a genius and there was a pemanent Republican majority. The Dems ain't hapless anymore!
Did you hear the one about the comedian who walked into the senate and asked, "What do you do for fun?" All the sitting senators said, "As little as we can get away with" and laughed heartily.
Franken successfully outrages the right and right leaning americans with his wit and political stances. However most independents take his humor for humor don't find that humor to be overly offensive or out of taste. After all its not like he wrote a song like 'Barack the magic *****" or called any republicans "f*gs".
There is a saying 'If you can't stand the heat get out of the kitchen." When republican's cry over spilt milk they look foolish. I mean really don't we expect our politicans who have to negotiate with foreign countries to be able to take a simple joke. If the republicans want to make a political gain off of Franken they are going to either have to match his political wit or provide better policy. Two things they haven't done a lot of in a very long time.
"By demonizing people like Harry Reid, Nancy Pelosi, Michael Moore, etc. the Democrats have taken back the Senate, House, and White House . . ."
Oh, really? I thought the economy, Brownie's fine work on Katrina, Bush's inability to string six words together, and one or two other factors -- the war? -- had something to do with it.,
Those too!
Banjo-
You're making my point. Republicans were incompetent in power. They ruined everything. Their response: the Karl Rove playbook of attacking and demonizing everyone who disagreed with them and trying to place blame everyone but on themselves. Look where it got them- minor party status.
"Their response: the Karl Rove playbook of attacking and demonizing everyone who disagreed with them and trying to place blame everyone but on themselves."
With certain demagogues using and abusing any pretext to blow their own, or their own faction's, horn; it wouldn't surprise me if the various factions inside the GOP drift further and further apart. Combined with loss of voters in several important demographics the once mighty GOP might eventually fraction beyond repair. Either the fundamentalists will succeed in driving out the moderates, or the moderates will reclaim the party and drive out the fundamentalist. Personally if I should speculate about the future I would say that over the next years several party members will either become independent, form a new party, or be voted out of office in future elections.
Personally I do not think it would be healthy if the nation had only one large party without any serious competition, but then one could argue that the current two-party system hasn't been entirely healthy either; not for citizens in general nor for those who feel their views fall outside the current Either Or two-party state.
Mr. Sarlin clearly never listened to Franken's radio program. He is deadly serious about policy and can outwonk just about anyone around. YES, he is a partisan but this strategy of characterizing Democrats like Franken and Obama before him as unacceptable hippie radicals doesn't work. Wake up, Sarlin. The lunatics and freaks are no longer on the left. They are on the right and continuing to portray Democrats who have pretty average positions as the next coming of Abbie Hoffman will only continue to degrade the already shattered credibility of rightwingnuts and the center-right pundits who love them.
I think Republicans should keep away from attacking Franken, he's their worst nightmare, an intellectual who will stoop to their level and fight back. The Right wing attack machine needs to stick to the soft easy targets they are used to.
Just look at how Keith Olberman regularly turns O'reilly into chum.
Too bad the majority of the viewers of the 8:00pm new's shows miss Olberman's vitriol - O'Reilly wins in the ratings.
Well stated.......there's something to be said for a rapier-sharp wit pitted against racist slurs and the "I'm rubber and you're glue" mentality of O'Reilly, Limbaugh and Coulter.
I didn't mind the article, since it quotes the exact people who are going to be lining up the crosshairs. I also agree that Franken has gone over the line a few times.
What disturbs me is that you don't read articles about who the Dems are going after next, with their own propaganda machine. Why doesn't the right fear us? Why are we already allowing ourselves to fear for a fight? We should be chomping at the bit for a fight right now! Our incoming President was as good as given a mandate!
Why can't we grow a pair???
"What disturbs me is that you don't read articles about who the Dems are going after next, with their own propaganda machine. Why doesn't the right fear us? Why are we already allowing ourselves to fear for a fight? We should be chomping at the bit for a fight right now! Our incoming President was as good as given a mandate!
Why can't we grow a pair???"
Perhaps one could argue that politics should be focused on rational administration and policy debate by citizens for the benefit of citizens; not simply trying to score points for your "side".
Good! Finally a unapologetic liberal who isn't afraid of the feeble minded bozos, like Limbaugh and Fox news. It is about time someone on the left says what needs to be said without cowering to the men from the insane asylum.
kluivertus calls the shot
Franken is the antithesis of what we progressives are used to It's time we grew a pair
well put
Having been called everything from communists to f*ggots by this same bunch should instill a bit of "It's time for our side to kick some a$$
I hope you guys are dead wrong. This idea of fighting fire with fire is not intelligent. The job of governing is not about attacks and one upmanship. All these media losers are not worth the microwaves they live on. I suggest you stop watching/listening to all that noise. There is a big world out there, trying to place food on the table, living in civility. The world at large cares as little for Rush Limbaugh as they do Keith Olberman....local bad comedians. I support our president in his attempt to disregard all the BS and to stay on the side of intelligence, compassion and one more thing....DIGNITY.....targeting is something that should be done in the Pentagon.
You guys could end up in that congregation reported on last week, down south, where the 'minister' invited his congregants, to bring their assault weapons to church, stating, "NOT ALL CHRISTIANS ARE PACIFISTS."
In other words, I think it is important to promote intelligence over knee jerks/jerks. Responding the Roves, Coulters etc just makes it worse....ignore them and they will go away. After all, they all need to make a living...let them go find some real s___t to shovel. Yes, where is Karl now? Let them write books no one wants to read. Man, that Anne Coulter, without money to put up her skinny nose....she'd be just another looney tunes down at the bus station hoping for a clean bed for the night in some shelter for the socially dysfunctional.
The writer quotes Brad Blakeman, the one who criticized Obama's trip to see his dying grandmother? This joker labels Franken outrageous?
My only regret is that Franken's political aspirations have caused us to lose the edgy, well-informed voice on the radio.
Go get 'em, Franken!
"Traffics in Hate?" I think that's kind of an extreme thing for a white Irish guy to say. I think the word "hate" is better contextualized when we're talking about hating gays, hating muslims, and hating Barack Obama, like what most of those dickheads at FOX News do.
Just think if Fraken has been in the Senate the last 8 years!! He would have had the balls that no one else had to call out the GOP for what it is, a bunch of Hypocritical, lying liar's that they are.
Fraken does not and WILL NOT appologize, he gets hit and then hits back twice as HARD.
If the GOP resorts to allowing the Limbaugh, Rove, O Reiley, Coulter scum to push their agenda then they will indeed be in the "Wilderness" for years to come.
Note to GOP, if you cant take it, take dish it!
Just think if Fraken has been in the Senate the last 8 years!! He would have had the balls that no one else had to call out the GOP for what it is, a bunch of Hypocritical, lying liar's that they are.
Fraken does not and WILL NOT appologize, he gets hit and then hits back twice as HARD.
If the GOP resorts to allowing the Limbaugh, Rove, O Reiley, Coulter scum to push their agenda then they will indeed be in the "Wilderness" for years to come.
Note to GOP, if you cant take it, dont dish it!
Al Franken is the perfect guy for the job! Washington needs the energy, opinions and enthusiasm Al offers. Bill O'Reilly, Sean Hannity, Ann Coulter, and Rush Limbaugh are all right-wing blowhard has-beens who've been more caustic and destructive than they could convince me Al Franken will ever be. I've read Al's books and, quite frankly, I'm looking forward to him living up to the high standards he sets.
This is actually pretty funny and fulfills the 'comedy' aspect of what is needed in culture as a softening agent for hard times. I remember Al Franken when Al Franken first appeared on the comedy scene. He was a young Al Franken, a funny Al Franken, an up and coming Al Franken. He had Al Franken written all over his face, with an Al Franken in your face Al Franken style.
If Al Franken wants to make a big splash in the Senate, then he, Al Franken, will have to ask, in the most Al Franken way possible, how there could be a CDS market, a Derivatives market, in an Al Franken economy, when NO ONE, least of all Al Franken himself, was responsible for supporting these markets during an Al Franken decline. Al Franken certainly knows that when Al Franken goes to the Store, Al Franken actually expects there to be an Al Franken kind of Store there when he arrives. Al Franken might also notice, that not only is there NO STORE, there is also no Al Franken way in Hell there could be a store, since the Al Franken SEC forgot to require that there be a store in the Al Franken first place. When you go to the floor of the NYSE, just ask them to direct you to the CDS booth where such financial instruments are traded. You'll likely find, yes Al Franken, standing there in his most Al Franken way, looking through his Al Franken glasses, at absolutely nothing since there is nothing there.
Can't you see the comedic possibilities inherent in Senator Al Franken's 'search' for 'where' these toxic financial instruments are actually traded? It'll be a Carmen Miranda/Al Franken spectacular, as he searches the Globe for the exact location where CDS's and other 'theoretical' and 'toxically crashworthy' financial instruments are designed, but never funded and can't be traded. But PLEASE, it is not fraud to sell 'theoretical securities' in a cyberspace atmosphere, where no one is responsible, except for, of course, Al Franken himself, since he is now Senator and trying to get to the Al Franken bottom of things, only to find there is nothing there.
pubster
nothing like a smart, funny, liberal to wage war w/ the bloviating bullies(Rush, O'Reilly, Coulter,et al). Franken is clever enough to put them in place with minimal effort. It will provide him w/ some comic relief from the serious work he will do in the Senate. Go get 'em
whew. i guess we all feel good about the change of watch in DC... and would like to see Fixx News and their kin crunched... however; Tina! why is this guy blowing his tripe out on The Beast? geesh. GAD! Could we possibly get a blog post from Alex Baldwin instead? much better.... geesh....
Thank you.
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