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.
I alread have my ballot marked.
Weird. I watch fairly small amounts of TV, and even smaller amounts of CSPAN, but I happened to see that very same bit. And yeah, Al Franken was awesome, though I got bored and turned the thing off once Bill O’Reilly started having his say.
I’d vote for him only if he promised to do every state of the union address as Stuart Smalley.
OMG!!! I watched the same segment! watching O’Reilly quietly simmer as Franken went on was priceless – I watched the whole thing, including the end, where O’Reilly stood up, shook Ivans hand, and quickly ran off (avoiding Franken). it was FANTASTIC, as Franken was quite on target, and O’Reilly such a rude bastard!
and another thing —- what the hell is “I mis-spoke”??? fine, maybe he (O’Reilly) didn’t lie, but he certainly was WRONG about the awards. So fes up, I was wrong – what the f%^k is “mis-spoke”??
I’ll bet you money he knew which award his own show had won, and just said “Peabody” because it’s an award more people would have heard of. And anyway, he definitely lied after the fact, denying he said “Peabody” in the first place after he was caught.
Poor bill.
ooh, looks like C-SPAN/Book-TV has posted the whole show!
http://www.booktv.org/misc/BookExpo_053103.asp
(scroll down)
Oh, I loved it! It’s about time that O’Reilly got his “comeuppance”! He may never be the same again, after this! The “Egg on his face” was drippin’ right down to his ‘wing-tipped shoes’, wasn’t it?! He was seething, like I had never seen him do before! His cool “Mr. Know-It-All” attitude sure ‘deserted’ him, didn’t it? Can’t wait for Franken’s and Ivins’ new books this fall! Hope they top O’Reilly’s on the best seller lists! That would be “Poetic Justice”, hm-mm?!
AL FRANKEN FOR PRESIDENT/AND MOLLY IVINS FOR V.P.!!!
:-]
The next day on one of the morning shows, they aired a portion of the CSPAN program. They only aired the portion where Bill O’Reilly retorted. O’Reilly went on and on about how Al Franken was a liar because Al had said he would talk for 15 minutes, and that in fact he had been speaking for 35. Al then turned to say something, and that’s when Bill started in with his “Shut up!”s.
That was all they aired. It was awful, because I was sure that Franken had the better argument. That’s how I came across this website… looking for what really went on.
Thanks,
Under siege in Texas