Al Franken Campaign, WSJ Coverage, Republican Response

THE ALLEGED COMEDIAN

Mainstream Media Sees Angry Franken As Humorist







When covering Al Franken, whether as a talk show host or US Senate candidate, the mainstream media has had a bizarre habit of wildly overstating his so- called comedic "talent". Why do they make such a point of trying to convince readers that he's funny?

In fact, a trip down memory lane reminds us that the truth is quite different: our friend Stuart is an angry, unstable, even violent schemer who generally thinks only of himself.


Now, in a new Wall Street Journal piece on Franken's candidacy, we are not just beaten over the head again with the idea that Franken is hilarious, we also learn that Republican opponents are planning to use some of his past dirty "comedy" material against him. As a result, Franken says he has withheld some of the "jokes" he would normally use during campaign stops:

But in a 30-year comedy career, much of Mr. Franken's humor has been bawdy and crude -- not the tight-lipped chuckles that Minnesotans tend to favor, says University of Minnesota political scientist Lawrence Jacobs.

Mr. Franken is known for "the kind of trash talk and potty mouth that people find offensive," he adds. "I can imagine a whole line of attack ads," Mr. Jacobs says, and "all of a sudden, the challenger is on the defensive."

Mr. Franken has a ready response. "People should give Minnesotans credit for knowing what a joke is and what it isn't," he says before launching into examples of what a joke isn't, including the Iraq war, veterans' care and congressional earmarks.

Lorne Michaels, the producer of "Saturday Night Live," adds that Mr. Franken's humor isn't out of step with a generation that grew up watching the show and its irreverent take on authority. "Nothing in his résumé seems that unusual if you're in the baby boom," he says.

Still, the Republican party isn't wasting time. Minutes after Mr. Franken declared his candidacy in February, the party released four pages of what it called Mr. Franken's "mean-spirited and divisive partisan" remarks. Among them: Mr. Franken's statement, in a New Statesman magazine interview last fall, that Mr. Coleman is "one of the administration's leading b- boys."

Mr. Coleman calls the slur "out-of-control vitriol." Mr. Franken says, "It was meant as a joke. I should have used 'lap dog' and I've said I will use 'lap dog' from now on."

Among the Republicans' other examples: a proposal to raise money by raffling off former Attorney General Janet Reno as a lap dancer or blasting oldsters into space on pay-per-view TV. "It was hyperbole," Mr. Franken says now.
A Republican Party "tracker" also has been following Mr. Franken, videotaping his speeches and casual banter with voters. "Every once in a while, I don't do a joke I might have," Mr. Franken says, because of the tracker, a 21-year-old Duluth college student. Mark Drake, a Minnesota Republican spokesman, says the party is "gathering footage" on Mr. Franken.

That intense focus on his humor presents a problem for Mr. Franken, whose campaign crowds seem to expect a laugh or two. In a Franken appearance on "The Late Show With David Letterman" last year, Mr. Letterman raised what he called "the potential conflict between your comedic instinct versus political instinct," as he urged Mr. Franken to tell a particularly bawdy joke.

"If you were going to ever run for the Senate, you wouldn't tell it," Mr. Franken said of the joke, which he persuaded Mr. Letterman to tell instead.

Mr. Franken says his humor was political but nonpartisan during the 15 years he wrote for "Saturday Night Live." That changed in 1995, he says, when the Republicans began to pare funding for social programs while also portraying themselves as the party of family values.

His response was to write a string of books -- starting with "Rush Limbaugh Is a Big Fat Idiot" -- that relentlessly needled Republican Party luminaries and conservative talk-radio. He signed on as a talk-show host on the liberal Air America radio network, where he honed his outrage. He left that gig in February.

While your Radio Equalizer is not surprised the state GOP believes they can fend off Franken's candidacy by pointing to his past dirty "jokes", given how off- track the party has recently been, it's hard to understand why they wouldn't want to campaign against Angry Franken as opposed to Smutty Franken.

That's because voters may be inclined to forgive him for edgy "comedy" routines, but might have a tougher time electing Franken knowing that he's really an unhinged, hot- tempered maniac. There's a lot of great oppo material on Stuart out there and much of it comes from his behind- the- scenes hijinks at Air America Radio.


In the end, what's really most outrageous is the insistence that Franken is funny. When was the last time he said something you found worth yukking it up over?


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