Finding Al Franken
HEMINGWAY, MARK
finding RI franken BY MARK HEMINGWAY 1 ]nhc'r. X11 Fl-•311kL•n ;, ;n .1 R'a 011111 oil t[it, L'}nlntr 1C't t Shit' ror Ill, ; CII phutic to tint• " i h;, ill: hC be ]r" 11r11 :t ,ionr,. •in l...
...Don Imus is a Big Putz.' Quick...
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...When I first met him, he was actually pro-life...
...Franken: Yes, yes...
...There was Stuart Smalley, of course, who wanted so much to be liked and respected...
...iilLi i hilt Flankcu tll.l...
...They confirmed EVERYTHING that Clinton said...
...Franken as Franken had nothing on f - "I thought yvii had the cataarra " THE AMERICAN SPECTATOR May 2001 63 which to base an opinion but that was part of the joke...
...1:t~ '13131 b1 Reasonable people, meanwhile, may disagree about whether Franken's devotion to Bill Clinton is objectionable...
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...But it's doubtful he offended pretty much everyone in the audience, and his unflattering remarks, on Whitewater and Clinton's womanizing, conveyed some unpleasant truths...
...I SARKES TARZIAN INC Sarkes Tarzian Television Sarkes Tarzian Radio Broadcasters Making a Difference 64 THE AMERICAN SPECTATOR May 2001 O'MELVENY & MYERS LLP CORPORATE LITIGATION INTELLECTUAL PRo ERTY LRAI)E AND INTERNATIONAL LAW E. N- I-I;RIAIN`MLMI N-I- AND MFDIA LABOR AND EMPLOYMENT WHITE COLLAR CRIME O'Melveny & Myers advises some of the nation's fastest growing technology companies - making their vision a reality by helping to establish them as viable businesses, helping them to protect, enforce, and defend their proprietary assets, and helping them with the infrastructure to move to the next level...
...It was a success almost immediately, and Franken was one of the reasons...
...I'm making fun of the meanness in public debate by being mean myself...
...Here is Franken again, for example, this time as star attraction at the 1996 White House Correspondents Dinner...
...My You wait for him to smile, show some glimmer of recognition...
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...ti c tt11, I,;[ii...
...On one occasion, though, he did show a vague unease...
...There is a funny-one of the funni est scenes-here he is, guarded by the Secret Service, and he's out on a rope line...
...they may think it is only misguided...
...Rush Limbaugh is a Big Fat Idiot was published in 1995...
...But more to the point, there was the character Franken played in the early 1980s...
...Franken made the quote up, of course...
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...Franken, as Franken, played a television commentator who might briefly mention a news story, and then say something like, "Now, I'm sure that when this happened, you immediately began wondering how this affected me-Al Franken...
...The paradox is that Franken, no matter how slavish his devotion to Clinton, does not seem to be much like him as a person.True, they both attended esteemed universities...
...Four years later he anchored Comedy Central's "Indecision '92...
...It's put me in a very, very difficult position, because it's really hard to do oral sex jokes about your friend...
...Why, of course, bias, and not just by individual conservatives, but by any publication that might present their views, as well...
...The sketches appeared in a series called "The Al Franken Decade...
...11i I-t,,11kcu...
...Franken as Franken satirized show-offs who demanded your attention for no reason other than their wanting it...
...Clinton, Georgetown '70, also put in time at Oxford and Yale...
...I hC C.11...
...Unlike the New York Times...
...When Franken was interviewed at the time by Jeff Greenfield on CNN, he seemed uncomfortable...
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...111, Inula]C, itid t-(1r:1c I Alto tint ,1r,oti:C'] but tout 11cCt„•]l-]iv to tilt HCnrti: of cirhtl...
...But not, however, by Franken, who, two years or so later, still believes his friend was done an injustice...
...Franken alone doesn't seem to get it at all...
...Don Imus had made unflattering remarks about Clinton at a similar function a few months before, and Franken did not want him to get away with it...
...Franken met his wife, Franni, when they were both in college, and apparently they have been devoted to one another ever since...
...Anyway, there you were, Al, sitting in that restaurant on the Upper West Side, where tea and scones cost upwards of $20, talking about how Democrats care so much more for the poor than Republicans do, and about what a fine man Clinton is, and you seemed to believe every word you were saying...
...You wait for him to smile, show some glimmer of recognition...
...C)rrl,rtin aln•.lt{,, kiw,,v, ihtlut Florida, tut rui nlartL t...
...If anyone has an axe to grind, the New York Times is Paul Bunyan...
...In 1975, they were hired, sight unseen, for "Saturday Night Live," then a fledging comedy show set to begin production in New York...
...311,E lit hi htl,-Chik t.tCt lnuci.ilL, ill ;rh ~-,eu1,i ]IL11110Y...
...Greenfield: Renaissance Weekend Franken: All of the above...
...t' [I1]rl t[rilI :11 1, 1H[[ ht' r-C•tlly C1t1C• I IC C.n'r, .ohms[ poll...
...As he actually writes in Rush Limbaugh: "I hope it's clear to you by now that this book is a satire about the breakdown in the civility of public discourse...
...He never took himself seriously...
...I came up with the title of my next book," Franken began...
...Appircutl thrr I:kc •tu l rc,l•CCt 111111- .[]1t] [::in hr...
...At the same time, he did on-air sketches...
...I think it will be so remembered...
...They also have two children, and Franken, no matter how amusing he may find it to ridicule family-values Republicans, seems to be very much a family man himself...
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...Exactly when Franken first felt the urge to go public with his politics is unclear, but in 1988 he did commentary for CNN at the Democratic National Convention in Atlanta...
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...The book really is mindless tripe, and if it passes for political satire, you probably should fear for this nation...
...Well, yes we have, Al, and if the headline on this story should be "Al Franken is a Short Dumb Schlemiel," of course that would be irony, too...
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...it was why the old sketches were funny...
...Don Imus: `For those of you listening on radio, the President is a cripple: I guess Imus was trying to show his shock jock credentials by showing that he was willing to stand up in front of 3,000 people, and offend pretty much every one of them...
...CC• 11 111]'C t• a, l it Ir.t,t t• lnYO h.lhl, 11.t]L1Cr...
...His role as liberal hit man has dulled his sensibilities and distorted his perspective...
...Franken will consider no other view at all, and when it is suggested to him that the final report on Filegate by the Office of Independent Counsel left something to be desired, he positively loses it...
...TA S's Bob Tyrrell, who was also on the CNN program with Franken, said this: I think he's a kind of amusing guy, lumbering up and down the halls of the White House looking for pizza-and what does he find...
...This is just your bias and you're wrong...
...He is supposed to be a satirist, and maybe that was dead-pan humor...
...No liaui•r .u,({ [ C1e+1C1(1t1 1.]Cltll itu1,]1c t]],-ii...
...But Franken is absolutely serious...
...Granted, Imus can be-and often is-tasteless...
...It's a pre-emptive strike...
...Indeed the belief seems to have metastasized into a great big ball of rage...
...Boychik gives way to an angry man...
...Franken nods...
...It was just a f--k up...
...Greenfield: Had dinner with him...
...till , C:1:C1nhCr 5nl.u t 5ni ih.ci...
...It has nothing to say, that rare book that can be judged by its cover, and is distinguished only by its nastiness-many, many fat jokes, 37 of them on a single page, the assertion that Lyn Nofziger looks like a pornographer, a characterization, more than one actually, of Phil Gramm as "mammario-fetishistic," an imagined scenario about Pat Buchanan and Dan Quayle having a homosexual affair, and so on...
...This is the Al Franken Decade," he would also tell viewers, and then urge them to give generously to "me, Al Franken...
...Right, as opposed to the New York Times...
...For whatever else you may think about Bill Clinton, you must admit he is a ripe topic for humor...
...It 11:tl, ]ii11t111t:t ~ Chtr1...
...It is easy to confuse an actor with the character he plays, but you cannot dismiss the similarities, and the characters Franken created and played were very much like Franken himself...
...He is supposed to be a satirist...
...i .c rr•:inl~ 1:1".tllkt'r] ,Ioc', t"Alt...
...He became a producer...
...Franken: Yes...
...There was no irony at all, but Lord knows you needed it...
...Franken had lost his long before that, and it showed...
...Clinton's health care task force...
...Franken knows what he knows, and he cites the Washington Times, which, he says, misinterpreted a harmless joke he made about John McCain's war record: "Isn't the object not to get caught...
...Franken: Yes...
...And then: Greenfield: Is there a moment lodged in your mind when you just looked and went, I don't know what to do with this, or, I can't believe this...
...Maybe that was dead-pan humor...
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...You realize then that, intelligent as he may be, he lives in a very small world, with very tightly constricted boundaries...
...But outwardly at least, the similarities end there...
...In the same moment, you know, he's practically barricaded in his office...
...L} It„c' .,tai pL•r,eul1.11, 111(11111]" }=ra],kC•tl i, (]i,.li-ttli]]~" Ht' tell...
...And true, they both enlisted in the anti-war movement, and avoided the military...
...also, everyone knew by then about the oral sex...
...These papers," he says, "have a political axe to grind...
...The sketches, which ran in the early eighties, played off the just concluded "Me Decade" of the seventies, and old SNL viewers remember them fondly...
...I thought this was one of the great bawdy classics of American literature...
...c t l•rilii:t...
...Greenfield: Apart from being a satirist, an author, executive producer of a prime-time comedy, you are also a loyal Clinton supporter-correct...
...You better f---ing read that again," he says, "because you got it wrong, buddy...
...The Secret Service can't even stop him...
...ill,' 11CC,i,, nC11n,11r...
...Franken: Yes...
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...They were very funny, and in their way quite revealing...
...It's called `irony.' Perhaps you've heard of it...
...But friend or not, it shouldn't be all that difficult, especially for a professional comic, unless, of course, he has surrendered to politics...
...Here he is now, back in the tea room on the Upper West Side, arguing with this writer about Clinton.The former president, he insists, was blameless on Whitewater,Travelgate, Filegate, the campaign finance scandal, the diversion of funds to and from the Teamsters, Waco, and Mrs...
...Franken as Franken, in fact, was satirizing Al Franken...
...Franken is Harvard, class of '72...
...His name was...
...And as his old partner Tom Davis observes, "He does have a conservative streak in him...
...Al Franken...
...Little dissent is tolerated there, and almost none is found...
...tlu "~ Rill rh.itl hill] •l hln,l...
...Moreover, even though Franken practically brags about helping his brother to dodge the draft, he toured for the USO the last two holiday seasons...
...impression of Don Imus at the 1944 Radio Correspondents Dinner...
...The DNA had been tested on the famous blue dress...
...Franken as Franken understood that perfectly...
...Fra]1kcr1 like, to hC .1.cd..i:Id ,{tic, lint vatic ,olio :t1 tiltllk :11 tit ]:iii...
...Then he moves seamlessly into a complaint about the New York Post and how it incorrectly identified him as a member of the crowd that helped shout down McCain at the Shadow Convention last summer...
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...Greenfield: Hung out with him...
...iCI IL L A.3111 +t1[ tllttt•t1]11t...
...And this airhead, Monica, walks up and gooses him...
...www.omm.com An International Law Firm Los Angeles • Century City • San Francisco Menlo Park • Irvine Spectrum Tysons Corner Newport Beach 0 New York • Washington, p.C, 0 Bong Kong • London 0 Shanghai • Tokyo...
...10,t or' 113, CIO :]] .l []a;, ].lLl htc'r...
...Greenfield: So do you find any conflict between your support for the president and the fact that on the sheer entertainment level, this is great...
...And ( )rn•tc lr1 ,., Lut't...
...God only knows what defense he can muster about the pardon scandal...
...But Franken is absolutely serious...
...Davis and Franken had a falling out ten years ago, and have not spoken since, but certainly they once were close.They had hitchhiked together from their homes in Minnesota to Los Angeles, where they worked as a comedy team in clubs...
...Tyrrell: When the Starr Report came out, and all the literati were aghast and acting so prudish-I looked at it the way I looked at the "Canterbury Tales" or Rabelais...
...At the same time it includes in the preface what purports to be a comment by Jeanne Kirkpatrick: "My goodness, if this is the kind of mindless tripe that passes for political satire these days, I fear for this nation...
...11 I r•llIkc']] 1• .11 Ilic tcll[C•r- ~0 :r1L• l,lr•[c'r1 Or l]lichIiOi 111 h'cO1nii poll[:t", •u-C 01NIt•C[t0ri.tt1:'" fIII: 111l:It11:1N ti1'I.l.t\It11...
...Franken as Franken was wonderfully funny, full of himself, boychik squinting through thick lenses, absolutely certain the world wanted to know his opinions...
...But without question it has been consistent, and if Franken has ever found anything unseemly in Clinton's behavior, he has been successful at hiding it...
...t:1tl hC 1 C•r Cul1rjll •, tic' r,o,l]t:t"•ti 111 [h [11c IlCt-.1 mat...
...But it did attract attention-weeks on best-seller lists-and that's what counts...
...More importantly, Imus had demonstrated what is, or at least should be, an essential quality for a political humorist: his independence...
...62 THE AMERICAN SPECTATOR May 2001 Franken, no matter how slavish his devotion to Clinton, does not seem to be much like him as a person...
Vol. 34 • May 2001 • No. 4
