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Before Mr. Franken went to Washington
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Al Franken finally heads to Washington
This interview with Al Franken was conducted in 2004 when the comedian, author and former Saturday Night Live writer was hosting a radio program on the Air America radio network. The 2004 presidential election (George W. Bush vs. John Kerry) was also chugging along at full-steam. This past week the Minnesota Supreme Court decided that Mr. Franken had indeed won the second senate seat from that state. He could be seated as early as next week.
Al Franken sounds a little fatigued. It is exactly 9:00 a.m. when he phones from New York City having set aside 20 minutes of his jam-packed schedule to talk to do this interview. Though not as animated as he is during his daily radio program, The Al Franken Show on the Air America Radio Network, the author of the New York Times best-seller Lies and the Lying Liars Who Tell Them, still manages to chuckle several times while discussing the presidential election and the record of the Bush administration.
The election has been widely called “the most important in a generation,” and is certainly the closest since 1960 when John F. Kennedy narrowly defeated Richard Nixon. Based on the events of the 2000 election, this one seems close enough that the Bush/Cheney campaign can still pull off something that will tip it in their favor.
“I don’t know if they have something up their sleeves,” Franken replies. “They are constantly trying to pull little things. The announcement of bringing 70,000 troops home from Germany and South Korea is a little something.”
Bush and Cheney of course have spoken in front of several military crowds in what appears to be an attempt to show rabid public approval before the TV cameras. “They’ve been speaking to their crowds,” Franken observes. “There are certain places where they’ve made people sign loyalty oaths (in order to hear the speeches).”
This practice, though widely reported, was denied by Minnesota senator Norm Coleman (R) during a recent appearance on The Daily Show with Jon Stewart. “Never did that,” he laughed.
However, that’s just one example of the ugly charges being fired off by both campaigns and by the groups that support each candidate. The most recent controversy surrounds "The Swift Vote Veterans For Truth," who claim Kerry exaggerated his war record and received metals he really did not deserve. The left has countered, for quite some time, that George W. Bush received favorable consideration when applying to the Texas Air National Guard during the Vietnam War, and then failed to show up for duty. Aren’t both sides slinging an equal amount of mud?
“I think the criticism of Bush’s lack of a war record is more legitimate,” says Franken. “Because first of all it seems to be based on truth. And the Swift Boat Veterans are being funded by republicans. So much of what they do is just down right lying or misleading. Whereas it’s pretty clear that the President got into a champagne unit of the National Guard and didn’t show up for either all or most of his service in Alabama.” He finishes that sentence with a hearty chortle, before continuing. “I think that is a legitimate thing when you talk about the president leading troops. (This is) the party that criticized Bill Clinton.”
As a dope smoking draft-dodger.
“Exactly.”
Patriotism, though, seems to be an important cog in the Bush/Cheney machine. Even those who don’t agree with the President, or only sometimes agree with him, may bristle when the Commander-In-Chief is criticized.
“Well I think there is an effort to use patriotism as a refuge. There’s an appeal to the American sense of exceptionalism, that we’re morally superior, as way to not be self-critical. I think that’s a bit dangerous.”
In his book Cruel and Unusual, author Mark Crisping Miller seems to contend that often the administration believes their own lies. It recalls Sienfeld’s George Costanza telling Jerry “it’s not a lie, if you believe that it’s true.”
“I think they have whole spectrum of what they do. And some of it alludes to being stuff that isn’t true, and knowing that it isn’t true, but trying very hard to believe it. But I think there is also outright lying.”
So did they really believe they were going to find weapons of mass destruction in Iraq?
“Yes they did,” Franken says flatly. “They cherry-picked the information. They were deliberately misleading. There’s no doubt about that. They thought there would be some chemical weapons. Biological weapons maybe.”
Al Franken has been a political pundit for quite a few years now. After being hired as one of the original writers and some time performer on the original Saturday Night Live, he left that program along with the cast and creator/producer Lorne Michaels in 1980. He returned in 1985 staying on for another decade. During that time he co-wrote the screenplay for the film When a Man Loves a Woman. In 1995 he wrote and starred in Stuart Saves His Family, based on his popular SNL character. Critically acclaimed it wasn’t well received at the box-office.
It was in 1988, however, that Franken began to emerge as a political satirist beyond the bounds of SNL. That year, CNN asked him to provide commentary at the Democratic National Convention. In 1992 and 1996 he co-anchored Comedy Central’s campaign coverage with conservative Arianna Huffington in a series of reports called Strange Bedfellows.
His 1998 sit-com Lateline, a spoof of nightly news programs like ABC’s Nightline, was another critically acclaimed venture that failed to draw large audiences, but it has just been released on DVD and features 4 unaired episodes.
In 1996 he wrote the best seller Rush Limbaugh is a Big Fat Idiot that firmly established him as a major nemesis of the right. He wrote two more books, also best-sellers, before penning the hugely successful Lies and The Lying Liars Who Tell Them: A Fair and Balanced Look at The Right. Now out in soft-cover, three chapters have been added. An addendum each to the chapters on Fox "News" personality Bill O’Reilly and conservative author Ann Coulter, as well as a hilarious recounting of Fox News’ attempt to sue Franken and his publisher over the book’s title and use of O’Reilly’s mug on the cover.
O’Reilly of course is no fan of Franken, and the media often mention the feud between the two. But it seems that Sean Hannity provides much greater opposition to Franken.
“(Hannity) is much more of an attack dog conservative,” Franken says. “Just basically say anything for the cause including blatant lying and I do think he’s pathological about lying on a number of things. I think he actually starts believing the lie. (About) Howard Dean for example, that Bush knew about 9/11 before it happened. Dean never said that. And that Dean advances the theory that Bush was told by the Saudis about what was going to happen. He didn’t advance that theory,” Franken notes with a laugh. “(Dean) mentioned that theory as one of the dangers of conspiracy theories being hatched by the hiding of information. (Hannity) also does this thing that Clinton was offered Osama Bin Laden on a silver platter and that’s just not true.”
Is Rush a better liar, or merely a craftier showman?
“I don’t know. That’s a very good question,” Franken ponders. “At least (Rush) has sort of a shtick that I suppose is a little easier to take, which is sort of cheeky bloviating. ‘I’m bloviating,’” Franken blusters in an impression of Limbaugh. “‘And if I’m lying—what I’m saying isn’t true it’s because is because it’s all a joke.’ Where as Hannity comes at it from the indignant outrage of a man who is fighting evil.”
Franken’s radio program, which he co-hosts with former Minnesota Public Radio personality Kathrine Lanpher, is currently only on a handful of stations around the U.S., but it can be heard on the Internet. “Overall we’re doing very well,” Franken reports. “We got our first quarter ratings in New York where we came in second to WABC.” WABC is the flagship station for both Limbaugh and Hannity. Franken adds, “we are the number one provider of streamed audio on the Internet and we have huge Internet audience.”
Franken is hopeful about having an affiliate here in Cincinnati. Good luck with Clear Channel. “Actually, we’re on a Clear Channel station in Portland, Oregon,” he points out. “We’re doing very well there.” Look out Willie Cunningham.
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