Month: June 2003 (Page 7 of 7)

Electric gallows

For those of us who tend to overthink pop culture stuff (one of mine is, why didn’t Dorothy just turn the hourglass over?), I offer Mike Benedetto’s treatise on “The Night the Lights Went Out In Georgia.” He definitely clears up some questions I know I already had about the song, and brings up new ones at that. Great stuff.

Al Franken For President And Other Stuff That Will Never Happen But Really Should

Saw Al Franken on CSPAN2 last night. (Yes, I lead an unbearably exciting life. Shut up.) He was appearing with Molly Ivins and Bill O’Reilly on some sort of panel discussion for book publishers, since all three have new books coming out this year. Franken was amazing, and reaffirmed that he is one of the most forceful liberal voices out there today.

His new book (out this fall) is called “Lies and the Lying Liars Who Tell Them,” and he has a fair amount of righteous anger for liars on the right, and also, I think, for the people who have let them get away with all those lies. I do too.

The best part was when he eviscerated O’Reilly, sitting a few feet away from him, over just one incident where O’Reilly claimed multiple times that his old tabloid show, “Inside Edition,” had won two Peabody Awards. Well, the show actually won one – a George Polk award, the year after O’Reilly left the show. Then, when O’Reilly was called on it, he loudly denied ever having claimed the show won a Peabody, even though it was in transcripts of interviews he’d given. Nice.

Even better was O’Reilly’s loud “Shut up! Shut up!” as he sat at the speaker’s table listening to Franken cut him to ribbons.

Maybe Molly Ivins can be Al Franken’s VP.