The nation's newest senators or near-senators are making news: Everybody is telling Roland Burris to leave, Kirsten Gilibrand has moved the guns she keeps under her bed and Al Franken is rehearsing his role back in Minnesota while the recount court fight goes on.
*After what is described as the fifth version of his contacts with associates of Rod Blagojevich and first admission of trying to raise money for the former governor, editorial calls for Burris to resign his seat are coming from the Chicago Tribune, the Washington Post and elsewhere. (He may soon have an asterisk to add to the newest title chiseled into granite in the Chicago cemetery that lists his firsts as a "Trail Blazer.")
*New York's new Senator Gilibrand, appointed to replace Hillary Clinton, told a reporter about two guns under her bed last week and, after a publicity firestorm, has decided to relocate them.
"Given that the location of the guns has been disclosed," her spokesman explains, "they have been moved for security reasons."
*Al Franken, with a 225-vote recount lead over Norm Coleman, has met with Minnesota mayors to discuss the national economic crisis and "learn what Minnesota's cities need most from Washington." At the rate the November results are being adjudicated, Franken may still be rehearsing for the part during the Senate's Easter break.
Nobody said 2009 would be dull.
Showing posts with label Al Franken. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Al Franken. Show all posts
Wednesday, February 18, 2009
Sunday, January 04, 2009
"American Idol" Finals for the Senate
The Washington talent show heads for a climax this week with the leading contenders a stand-up comic from Minnesota, a woman from New York doing an Eleanor Roosevelt impersonation and an Illinois ventriloquist act. Is this any way to run a country?
Al Franken, Caroline Kennedy and Roland Burris could very well turn out to be fine US senators but, in the shenanigans surrounding their possible entry, will any or all of them be up to speed for casting votes on the huge, intricate and critical stimulus bill for the economy and the other legislation to follow?
As the media and bloggers feast on all the details of the contests, it's unnerving to think about the people who may be helping to decide America's economic future coming into the debate after weeks of being immersed in a vote recount, a Sarah Palinish campaign to project political gravitas and the maneuvering by a governor facing impeachment and/or indictment.
By month's end, all three may be seated in the Senate and ready to go to work with the best of intentions, but it's hard not to think that even "American Idol" puts its aspirants through a more rigorous process of prepping for their performance.
Al Franken, Caroline Kennedy and Roland Burris could very well turn out to be fine US senators but, in the shenanigans surrounding their possible entry, will any or all of them be up to speed for casting votes on the huge, intricate and critical stimulus bill for the economy and the other legislation to follow?
As the media and bloggers feast on all the details of the contests, it's unnerving to think about the people who may be helping to decide America's economic future coming into the debate after weeks of being immersed in a vote recount, a Sarah Palinish campaign to project political gravitas and the maneuvering by a governor facing impeachment and/or indictment.
By month's end, all three may be seated in the Senate and ready to go to work with the best of intentions, but it's hard not to think that even "American Idol" puts its aspirants through a more rigorous process of prepping for their performance.
Wednesday, March 26, 2008
The Senator from Saturday Night Live
Al Franken is a step away from getting the nomination to run against Minnesota's Republican Sen. Norm Coleman in November.
This month, his competition dwindled down to an under-funded activist college professor who is given little chance of beating him at the Democratic-Farmer-Labor convention in June. The party of Hubert Humphrey, Walter Mondale and Paul Wellstone will be nominating the author of "Rush Limbaugh is a Big Fat Idiot."
For Franken, since he first announced over a year ago, the political race has been no laughing matter. He's been working hard at fund-raising, matching the incumbent, and lining up the state's liberal constituency behind him. Serving as a Fellow with the Kennedy School of Government at Harvard in 2003, he knows a thing or two about serious politics.
In Coleman, Franken will be facing a popular Republican, who was against the Surge in Iraq a year ago but has not otherwise broken ranks in opposing all Senate efforts to stop or slow down the war.
In a state that elected a professional wrestler as governor, Franken's show business resume won't be a fatal handicap, although Republican will be mining his books and standup routines for the most outrageous statements to use again him.
But Stuart Smalley should be up to the challenge of getting the first graduate of Saturday Night Live into the US Senate to show the jokers there how it really should be done.
This month, his competition dwindled down to an under-funded activist college professor who is given little chance of beating him at the Democratic-Farmer-Labor convention in June. The party of Hubert Humphrey, Walter Mondale and Paul Wellstone will be nominating the author of "Rush Limbaugh is a Big Fat Idiot."
For Franken, since he first announced over a year ago, the political race has been no laughing matter. He's been working hard at fund-raising, matching the incumbent, and lining up the state's liberal constituency behind him. Serving as a Fellow with the Kennedy School of Government at Harvard in 2003, he knows a thing or two about serious politics.
In Coleman, Franken will be facing a popular Republican, who was against the Surge in Iraq a year ago but has not otherwise broken ranks in opposing all Senate efforts to stop or slow down the war.
In a state that elected a professional wrestler as governor, Franken's show business resume won't be a fatal handicap, although Republican will be mining his books and standup routines for the most outrageous statements to use again him.
But Stuart Smalley should be up to the challenge of getting the first graduate of Saturday Night Live into the US Senate to show the jokers there how it really should be done.
Wednesday, August 22, 2007
Bragged About Any Good Books Lately?
The news today is that even reading has been politicized. A new poll finds one of every four Americans has not cracked a book in the past year, and that leads to a brouhaha about whether conservatives or liberals are the most avid readers.
Former Democratic Congresswoman Pat Schroeder, now president of the American Association of Publishers, started it by saying, "The Karl Roves of the world have built a generation that just wants a couple slogans: 'No, don't raise my taxes, no new taxes.' It's pretty hard to write a book saying, 'No new taxes, no new taxes, no new taxes' on every page."
"Obfuscation,” White House spokesman Tony Fratto shot back, “usually requires a lot more words than if you simply focus on fundamental principles, so I'm not at all surprised by the loquaciousness of liberals."
As a spectacularly unsuccessful book publisher for a brief time, I can mediate this with a few words of wisdom: Who knows? People buy books for all kinds of reasons: from self-help advice about diet, money, etc. as promises to themselves to improve their lives, which they may read or skim but just feel better about possessing, to serious works, which may serve the same purpose on an intellectual level.
Conservative blogger Jonah Goldberg today confesses his “dirty little secret: I'm a terrible book nibbler, reading the introductions and then grazing from the tasting menu called the index.”
Figures in the AP poll found that 22 percent of liberals and moderates said they had not read a book, compared with 34 percent of conservatives. But there are books and books: Ann Coulter and Al Franken do their stand-up routines between hard covers, Rove admits that he and President Bush sometimes cheat in their reading contest by counting murder mysteries, and then there are all the vacuous best sellers that, as Flannery O’Connor once observed, could have been prevented by a good teacher.
In the age of YouTube and blogs, what may be the real news in all this is that the politically persuaded are still so touchy about their intellectual credentials. It would be helpful if they showed some signs of brain activity in what they said and did, instead of arguing about what’s on their night stands and coffee tables.
Former Democratic Congresswoman Pat Schroeder, now president of the American Association of Publishers, started it by saying, "The Karl Roves of the world have built a generation that just wants a couple slogans: 'No, don't raise my taxes, no new taxes.' It's pretty hard to write a book saying, 'No new taxes, no new taxes, no new taxes' on every page."
"Obfuscation,” White House spokesman Tony Fratto shot back, “usually requires a lot more words than if you simply focus on fundamental principles, so I'm not at all surprised by the loquaciousness of liberals."
As a spectacularly unsuccessful book publisher for a brief time, I can mediate this with a few words of wisdom: Who knows? People buy books for all kinds of reasons: from self-help advice about diet, money, etc. as promises to themselves to improve their lives, which they may read or skim but just feel better about possessing, to serious works, which may serve the same purpose on an intellectual level.
Conservative blogger Jonah Goldberg today confesses his “dirty little secret: I'm a terrible book nibbler, reading the introductions and then grazing from the tasting menu called the index.”
Figures in the AP poll found that 22 percent of liberals and moderates said they had not read a book, compared with 34 percent of conservatives. But there are books and books: Ann Coulter and Al Franken do their stand-up routines between hard covers, Rove admits that he and President Bush sometimes cheat in their reading contest by counting murder mysteries, and then there are all the vacuous best sellers that, as Flannery O’Connor once observed, could have been prevented by a good teacher.
In the age of YouTube and blogs, what may be the real news in all this is that the politically persuaded are still so touchy about their intellectual credentials. It would be helpful if they showed some signs of brain activity in what they said and did, instead of arguing about what’s on their night stands and coffee tables.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)