Here is Al Franken being sworn in to the U. S. Senate:
Do you remember The Ad? The ad that made everyone in Minnesota who kinda didn’t like Norm Coleman go over the line and realize that Norm Coleman is the scum of the earth? You can read about that here but I’ll summarize it for you briefly and tell you why I even bring it up.
When Al Franken was running for the Senate, he would often tell a particular story about Paul Wellstone. In this story, Senator Wellstone is running along side his son, who is, in turn, running second or third in a cross country race as part of his high school track team. Paul, known for his energy, is running along side his son for the entire race. And near the end, he moves in close, running sideways along side Junior and encouraging him. Franken, at this point in the story, imitates Wellstone running sideways, flapping his arms and yelling “You can do it! You can take him! You can do it! You can take him!”
This is a funny, engaging, and indeed poignant story. For those of you who don’t know, Senator Paul Wellsone was widely loved by Minnesotans, he died an untimely and violent death while Senator, we ran a good Democrat to take over his seat but stupidity prevailed and Norm Coleman took Wellstone’s seat. In essence, Franken is taking back Wellstone’s seat from Coleman. When I’ve seen Franken tell this story it brought tears to my eyes, and that was true of everyone in the room.
Then, the fuck-head Republicans did the worst thing they could do. They took video of Franken telling this wonderful and engaging story … the part where he is imitating a father encouraging his son at a race … and cut that into an ad that made Franken look like a raving maniac, telling voters that if Franken won the election he’d soon get busy yelling at them and being a violent freak of some kind.
They were caught. They were embarrassed, I think, but they never did apologize. And they will never live it down.
But that did not stop them from using the same footage again. For reasons that are beyond me, the swearing in of Al Franken to his justly earned Senate Seat prompted the Republican Fuckwads to make an anti-Al Franken ad for Youtube, and it uses that same footage.
Hey, Republicans. In case you didn’t notice. We can see you. In fact, the whole world is watching.
Wow! That felt great!
When Vice President Biden said “Congratulations, Senator Franken.” I cried. I put a lot of hard work into this, and I feel fantastic right now.
Congratulations to all of us. 🙂
Hot damn! I never even heard of Norm Coleman before reading about him on your blog, and in the last few months have taken quite a disliking to him. And in that time I’ve also learned that Al Franken is a right-thinking individual.
Such good news.
Who needs the Republicans to bash Franken when we’ve got the press? The headline: Democrats treat Franken as a trophy, reward him with a bit part in Sotomayor drama. That would be the AP, and the rest of the article is bizarre.
Kammy, I don’t think I said this last night, but thank you.
I think that this is a good day for Minnesota. It was about two years ago when I sat down at Sweeney’s in St. Paul and chatted with Al and told him that I would phone bank and caucus for him in the northern suburbs.
In subsequent campaign events I never got to talk to Al all that much, but I had a lot of good chats with Frannie as we both snuck outside for cigarettes. She’s a wonderful person, and I am glad to have her in Washington.
@Stephanie, awww!! I used to say when Franken finally won, I was taking full credit for it. 😀
Reading that article you linked and another one linked from it, got me so mad. They’re going to pick him apart because on the day he is sworn in as one of only one hundred people in the entire known universe to hold that position, the achievement of a lifetime, he cracks a few jokes and “laughs ebulliently”. Like every other senator throughout history has never cracked a smile and has been 100% serious all the time…
Gah! Where the hell is my vodka!?!?
Good going Al! Yay!
It looks like they did not let the Republicans in the room during this ceremony.
Congratulations to everyone who worked to make this happen.
It was an attack ad like this that lost the Conservatives not only an election but their status as a national party some years ago, as they won only two seats. Unfortunately, the Reform Party–their right-ring rump–reconstituted itself as the Conservatives, named, for a short & glorious time until someone looked at the acronym, the Conservative Reform Alliance Party. And then the object of the attack ad, Prime Minister Chretien, hung on to power for so long that everyone was sick of him and the Conservatives got in. We still have them.
Senator Franken. Has a ring to it. A step up for Minnesota to be sure.
@Mike Haubrich, FCD: Too right. Franni is the best. I was their dog walker for several months before he declared and then a few after he declared and I remember chatting with Franni so many times in the kitchen while she made pies and such. She is dear. I couldn’t believe how she actually wanted to talk to me, to ask about how I was doing, how my little boy was, etc. The thing I always want people to know about both of them is what decent and kind and truly caring people they really are.
I love Al Franken because of the funny and courageous books he wrote in the gloomiest days of George W. Bush: “Lies and the Lying Liars who Tell Them”! and “The Truth with Jokes”.
Recently, a Republican sorehead called him “a clown”. My reply: “Ronald Reagan made some pretty clownish movies. When did he ever write books as good as Frankens’?”
You’re talking like the Republycans care.
They don’t.
And no, it won’t be remembered forever. It’ll be forgotten by the time of the next election because their behavior then will be even more outrageous than it was this time around. This is politics, Greg. It has nothing to do with realistic expectations or reasonable standards.
BTW, Frannie is somewhat funnier than Al.