Al Franken

Josh posted a squib the other day. He wanted readers to give their opinion of Al Franken and the election mess in Minnesota. I made a comment but it was too late, really. So I thought I would give my views of our new Senator in my own blog.

But I must begin with a little historical background. In the 1970's I actually examined real estate transfer documents; deeds, contracts for deeds, foreclosure orders...

I grew up in Richfield, Minnesota. In examining deeds for this suburb abutting Minneapolis, I saw the actual restrictive covenants contained in the transfer documents from the 1940's on.

When you purchase real estate, you are given the impression that you will own the property outright, assuming you pay off your mortgage. But you only own the property:

Subject to zoning laws that may proscribe the selling Chinese take-out from your basement.

Subject to usually large property taxes assessed upon you for every year  of ownership.

Subject to public easements including streets, sidewalks, alleys, sewage pipes, electrical hook ups, etc.

And, in the old days, subject to other restrictions contained in your deed. 

Some of these restrictions were a little harsh for ordinarily good Christian People. The deed would actually keep you from ever selling your property to 'colored people' or to people 'of the Jewish race or faith.'  No kidding. Our good activist Supreme Courts of the old days, looked askance at these directives after honoring them for a couple hundred years and made these restrictive covenants unenforceable sometime in the 1950's.

So the documents I examined blacked out all this evidence of racial segregation. However, you could still read the old wording. Ha!

Well, Al grew up in a primarily Jewish community in this state known as St. Louis Park. The same  community that brought us Tom Friedman. Back in high school, my more racist friends called it 'St. Jewish Park.'

So Al certainly grew up in a 'liberal' state, but racial bias was not a thing of the past as he was growing up.

In the midst of my own depression years ago, I was given Al Franken's book: Rush Limbaugh is a Big Fat Liar.

That really was my introduction to him after SNL of course. I mean who could forget the line:

AND ME, I'M AL FRANKEN.

I read that book and I went nuts. He grabs some Harvard students and puts together a book. He was sick and tired of the lies being perpetrated on the radio and on TV by the right.

I read his next two books and followed him when I could while he had his radio show. I know he had a history of working with Wellstone, campaigning with him. Paul Wellstone is a hero in Minnesota. A God. No kidding.

Wellstone would get on the Senate floor and just lambaste Bush and the repub majority. Just raise holy hell at a time when the Dems had very little going for them.

And WE LOSE WELLSTONE in a small plane crash. I was devastated. Minnesota was devastated and there is not time here to recount how the repubs twisted events taking place at the Senator's funeral that led to the Norm Coleman win.

Then Coleman, who has the opportunity to be Harry S. Truman; to research and hold hearings on the graft in the w administration and the hand-outs to cheney's company............

Nothing, He does nothing but rubber stamp the entire debacle.

Few of us will be sorry to see the back of Coleman, who managed to earn a place on CREW's list of most corrupt members of Congress, which is no easy task. (Also, he used to have a really bad haircut, even compared with today's.) Eric Alterman, Daily Beast

The State of Minnesota, the home of the Humphreys, the McCarthy's, the Frazers, the Mondales, and, alas, Paul Wellstone, was once again represented by a repub front for the rich and powerful.

And of all people, Al steps up to the plate. Gives up his radio show two and a half years ago.
He proceeds to put his money and his time and his career on the line for what I perceived as a lost cause.

So how does a friend of his describe the decision of one of our best comedians to run for the United States Senate? Well Eric Alterman writes:

Franken was just thinking about running back then. He had been inspired by the loss of his friend, Paul Wellstone--perhaps the most progressive senator of all time--and the fact that though he lived off Riverside Drive, he retained a deep connection to Minnesota.

When I asked Franken how he planned to handle the carpetbagger issue, he said he could argue that, unlike Coleman, he was the New York Jew in the race who had actually grown up as a Minnesotan. He also confided that when Alan Keyes made his Illinois Senate race against a fellow with the funny name of Barack Hussein Obama, Franken got a tip that Coleman would be appearing on The Daily Show, so he called Jon Stewart and asked him to ask Coleman if he would vote for Keyes, whose carpetbaggery was so shameless as to be transparent. http://www.thedailybeast.com/blogs-and-stories/2009-07-01/how-cool-is-franken/?cid=hp:beastoriginalsL4

Alterman also gives us a little insight into my new Senator:

How cool is Al Franken? Five years ago, I drove to Jones Beach to see the post-Jerry Garcia Grateful Dead in the pouring rain. It was idiotic, except that I ran into Franken and his wife, Frannie, and their daughter. We went backstage to talk to the band and they got us out of the rain and put us on the stage instead.

I am a boomer and I cannot tell you how great it is to find out my new representative is a dead head. Ha!

I thought I would type an excerpt from Al Franken's The Truth in order to demonstrate why I might like this guy:

Or as Dick Cheney had put it more succinctly seven and a half weeks earlier:

It's absolutely essential that eight weeks from today, on November 2 (2004), we make the right choice, because if we make the wrong choice, then the danger is that we'll get hit again, that we will be hit in a way that will be devastating from the standpoint of the United States, and that we'll fall back into the pre 9/11 mindset, if you will that in fact these terrorists attacks are just criminal acts and that we are not really at war.

As obnoxious as that was, I thought his next comments, which were no so widely reported, were even worse:

Further, we have very credible intelligence that tells us that if Kerry wins, the following states will be hit: Ohio, Florida, Minnesota, Pennsylvania , Wisconsin and New Mexico. What's more, terrorists are also threatening to attack any state in which the Democrats pick up a senate seat.

Now Franken adds this footnote:

After my last book, some of the younger and/or less bright readers complained that they could not tell when I was joking....The quote from Cheney about 'making the right choice,' while cartoonishly inflammatory, is real. The quote about terrorists attacking swing states, is, to my knowledge, just something I made up.

Ha!

How can you not like a guy who writes like this?

TPM gave us this note By Eric Kleefeld :

Sen.-elect Al Franken (D-MN) appeared on the Bill Press Show this morning, and responded to Sen. Jim Inhofe's (R-OK) remarks about the recent election victory by "the clown from Minnesota."

"I don't know how Sen. Inhofe regards clowns, but it might be an incredible compliment," said Franken.

To many of us in Minnesota Al is our NEW hero. And we feel that he will demonstrate what a good liberal can do for our state and our country.

UPDATE: 4:30pm cdt:

Sen.-elect Al Franken (D-MN) will be sworn into his new position on Tuesday, July 7, CNN reports.

Fun fact: This means Franken will be sworn in exactly six months plus one day after when he would have been sworn in along with all the other folks elected to the Senate in 2008, if not for the legal battle that kept his super-narrow election victory in limbo.