Apparently the ballot-counters in Minnesota have declared Al Franken the victor in the Senate race there. This doesn't end the story -- the Republican will sue, and Franken's margin of victory is a matter of a few hundred votes.
Still, I hope he ends up going to Washington and serving a term. He'll be much funnier in the Senate than in his former career.
Strange place, Minnesota, where some few sparks of the old populist flame still faintly glow; but ever since the Democrats swallowed up the Farmer-Labor Party during the mid-40s revanche, the net effect of this honorable but threadbare legacy is to make Democratic candidates slightly more hypocritical -- during election season -- than they are in less favored states.
Along these lines, Franken really makes a perfect successor to another Minnesota clown, one of the original architects of the Democratic Anschluss of the FLP, shown below with a remarkably Strangelovian Werner von Braun:
Comments (16)
the hump eyes an early proto type
death ray ball turret
alpha 60 looks on
thru an out of frame
surveillance camera
"there is no past... there is no future"
Posted by op | January 5, 2009 8:47 PM
Posted on January 5, 2009 20:47
I dunno, I thought Lying Liars was pretty funny, if factually inaccurate re: the Clinton years - although there was a kind of unintentional humor even in that.
Looking at his platform, he certainly seems more liberal than most Donks, but there's no doubt in my mind that he will fall into line pretty quick once/if he gets into the Senate...
Posted by dermokrat | January 5, 2009 9:43 PM
Posted on January 5, 2009 21:43
Posted by MJS | January 5, 2009 10:00 PM
Posted on January 5, 2009 22:00
When Al was doing Air America he struck me as a fairly reliable apologist for the Dems. Not in any reflexive way--he's much too ponderous for that--but rather as someone whose idealism never extended much beyond the fringes of his party's platform in the first place. And when they failed to deliver even those few crumbs, he'd chalk it up to Republican obstructionism.
Posted by peter | January 5, 2009 10:34 PM
Posted on January 5, 2009 22:34
I listened to him on Air Donkeyturd, and my reaction was that if that was how awful he was as a talk radio jock, he'd make Bill Clinton look like FDR once in office. This is a guy who's proud of himself for caring about the Democratic Party, thinking that's rebellious.
I hope he "wins," too. That'll finish him better than anything else.
Posted by Michael Dawson | January 6, 2009 2:37 AM
Posted on January 6, 2009 02:37
he's a high woodstock
harvard fop and wit
which means :
he can operate
at the thru speed
of a panama canal lock
look uglier
then a tractor track in march
and
think less nimble
then a wrought iron gate
in a ghost town
ps those were lines i wrote for him
to use against norm
but they suit hizzseff better eh ??
Posted by op | January 6, 2009 7:23 AM
Posted on January 6, 2009 07:23
Ho ho Hube's politics cubed for the rubes.
Destroying the village in order to save it since '65.
Posted by Michael Hureaux | January 6, 2009 9:58 AM
Posted on January 6, 2009 09:58
When your a clown nobody takes you seriously
Posted by Son of Uncle Sam | January 6, 2009 11:03 AM
Posted on January 6, 2009 11:03
Three or four years ago, on one of my wife's and my annual trips to Puerto Vallarta, I brought along a copy of Lies and the Lying Liars Who Lie Them -- or whatever the fuck it was called -- as part of my airplane/beach reading.
It started off strong enough, had me thinking "at last, Franken's funny for the first time since he left SNL", but then comes the chapter where he talks about how much he luuuuuvs The Troops™ (with photographic evidence) and the next thing I know, I'm reading a Donkeycratic Party campaign talking-points tract.
I couldn't even finish it. I started reading it on the flight home from PV and, while in the O'Hare departure lounge waiting for our connecting flight to DCA, I finally couldn't stand anymore and, when our flight was called, I paused a moment in thought, and then tossed the book into the trash along with my empty Coke cup and pizza plate on my way to the gate.
When Air America was still on the air, and when that horrible trend of putting talk-radio shows on TV was still in full swing (MSNBC was running Don Imus, in a static headshot, with headphones clamped over his hat), my wife would put on Air America to get back to sleep if she awoke at 3am. Needless to say, I was instantly jarred awake by Franken's nasal whining drone and found myself unable to go back to sleep as my wife dozed off. Ugh.
The only thing worse about Air America was Randi Rhodes' endless bashing of Greens, Nader, the Left, Progressives (as opposed to "Pwogwessives"), and anyone else who dared call bullshit on the Democwats. Her appearances at a couple of Code Weak...uhh, Code Pink rallies added insult to injury.
Posted by Mike Flugennock | January 6, 2009 1:17 PM
Posted on January 6, 2009 13:17
Franken has always been one to spitefully prolong his already unfunny jokes. It's his means of punishing the audience for their moral and intellectual failings. He detects these failings by the absence of happy laughter for his jokes, which they would think funny if they weren't such bad, miserable people. He likes his jokes, after all. He always laughs. Why can't they manage? Because they're unwilling to try.
But he loves them anyway, bless their hearts, and now he's going to help them learn, good and hard, from a seat in the Senate.
Posted by Al Schumann | January 6, 2009 1:36 PM
Posted on January 6, 2009 13:36
Hey, I'm just a mortified as the next Minnesnowtan and I voted for Ventura. Having a DLC toady who doesn't even like living here weasel his way into Wellstone's old seat is nauseating.
Posted by AlanSmithee | January 6, 2009 6:25 PM
Posted on January 6, 2009 18:25
I kept thinking all through childhood that Franken wasn't funny;That maybe it was a grownup thing and someday I'd "get it." Well, thirty-odd years later, I still don't. Fucker's never been funny, and he never will be.
Other than that, what Schumann said. :/
Posted by ms_xeno | January 6, 2009 8:07 PM
Posted on January 6, 2009 20:07
on an unrelated note, i was a bit heartened to see this piece on the Daily Show:
http://www.thedailyshow.com/video/index.jhtml?videoId=213380&title=strip-maul
Posted by dermokrat | January 6, 2009 8:49 PM
Posted on January 6, 2009 20:49
"Other than that, what Schumann said..."
often the case
al's the balls
Posted by op | January 7, 2009 8:13 AM
Posted on January 7, 2009 08:13
"three or four years ago, on one of my wife's and my annual trips to Puerto Vallarta.."
well there's the problem right there flugger
travel american
Posted by op | January 7, 2009 8:17 AM
Posted on January 7, 2009 08:17
"Franken has always been one to spitefully prolong his already unfunny jokes"
he makes you look at him while nothing
additional is coming out
blood hound looks
are for a hill billy porch
a face lifted blood hound
with a harvard ab
is no mr peabody
Posted by op | January 7, 2009 8:23 AM
Posted on January 7, 2009 08:23