Schadenfreude Delayed

/in /by

Remember how, back in 2002, the nutters attacked Al Franken because some nutters got booed during Paul Wellstone’s funeral?

To this day, there are still a lot of people, including Democrats, who’ve bought the right wing line on the Wellstone Memorial. Specifically, that it was a cynical, premeditated political event that included endless booing of Republican politicians who came to pay their respects to their fallen colleague. I wrote a pretty detailed account of the Wellstone Memorial in my book Lies and the Lying Liars Who Tell Them, and nothing could be further from the truth. I did write that "reasonable people of good will were genuinely offended." The memorial was raucous and a couple of speakers said some things that were inappropriate – basically, let’s win this (upcoming Senate) election for Paul.

There were also honest Republicans of good will, including Jim Ramstad – the Congressman from the Minneapolis suburban district I grew up in – who acted like human beings and cut the speakers who offended (Rick Kahn and, to a lesser degree, Mark Wellstone) a little slack because they understood that Rick had lost six very close friends and Mark had lost his father, mother, and sister.

The chapter was mainly about how cynically Republicans used the memorial politically as they complained that the Democrats had used it politically. And how the mainstream media, many of whom had neither attended the memorial nor seen it on TV, bought into the Republican spin.

Mainly, there was a lot of lying. Rush Limbaugh claimed that the audience was "planted," when, in fact, Twin Cities’ radio and TV had to tell people to stay away because Williams Arena was jammed to capacity three hours before the Memorial was scheduled to begin. Thousands were crowded into an overflow gym to watch on a screen and thousands watched outside on a cold, late October night.

A pained Limbaugh asked his audience the day after the memorial: "Where was the grief? Where were the tears? Where was the memorial service? There wasn’t any of this!"

This was a lie. I was there. Along with everyone else, I cried, I laughed, I cheered. It was, to my mind, a beautiful four-hour memorial.

I didn’t boo. Neither did 22,800 of the some 23,000 people there.

Rush? You want grief? 

I present to you Senator Al Franken.

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  1. surfer says:

    A toast to good parentage. Take note world, the Obamas and the Frankens. What a breath of frrrresh air.

  3. BlueStateRedHead says:

    Forget the Schaden. Just the Freude! will do Schiller’s and Beethovens, for starters. and then down the feeling feeding chain to Hallmark.

    More down to earth or since we are talking Cornyn, somewhere below, what effect will the he Republican-threatened filibuster have if carried out?

    Or do you read Reid as provisionally seating Norm?

    • cinnamonape says:

      “More down to earth or since we are talking Cornyn, somewhere below, what effect will the he Republican-threatened filibuster have if carried out?”

      Here’s how to solve the Corn-dog problem.

      First Reid calls for a vote that all seated new members will take the oath in the morning after they are accepted and have full voting status immediately.

      Then Reid places all the Democratic Senators that need to be accepted first up on the list with all Republicans, both re-elected and new, to follow. He puts two names at the end of the Democratic list…Franken and Burris.

      Now technically Cornyn, who is not member of the Senate YET is sitting out there without the right to call for a filibuster or any other activity. He hasn’t been re-accepted. So if the Republicans block Franken he can call a recess for the next day. The new Democratic Senators are sworn in during the morning and the process continues. Now there are a whole slew of new Democrats, enough to break any sort of a filibuster vote. And if the Republicans still insist on a filibuster they will have three days that most of their members will be unable to participate.

  4. Palli says:

    What’s the bet Coleman goes to RNC Chair? Hr’s got the suits….Or are the neo-Conferderates going to win this war in the party. no, I suppose you can’t call it a war… it’a friendly scrapple for the republican remnants between confederates over the same hypocritical ideas and her can tell best off colorwhite joke.
    Why did Lincoln fight that war…federal funding for the underground railroad would have worked.

  5. jdmckay says:

    Excellent!!!

    My fav Franken moment, during Fox’s “Fair and Balanced” lawsuit.

    Wiki:

    The filing stated that Franken had “been described as a ‘C-level political commentator’ who is ‘increasingly unfunny’”, and claimed that the comedian was “shrill and unstable” and had “appeared either intoxicated or deranged” at a press correspondents’ dinner in April 2003. Fox also requested a temporary restraining order (denied August 20, 2003) to restrain the distribution of the book until their request for a preliminary injunction was heard by the court.[4]

    In response, Franken joked that he had trademarked the word “funny”, and that Fox had infringed his intellectual property rights by characterizing him as “unfunny.” The publicity resulting from the lawsuit propelled Franken’s then-unreleased book to the #1 sales position on Amazon.com’s best-seller list.

    (…)

    (U.S. District Court judge) Denny Chin (…) questioned Fox News attorney Dori Ann Hanswirth harshly about her contention that the phrase “fair and balanced”. At one point he asked Hanswirth, “Do you think that the reasonable consumer would believe, seeing the word lie above Mr. O’Reilly’s face, that Mr. O’Reilly or Fox were endorsing this book?”

    (…)

    Drawing on Judge Chin’s concluding remarks, Franken suggested that Fox News adopt “wholly without merit” as its new slogan to replace the possibly invalid “fair and balanced”.

    CBS:

    Franken joked that he was “disappointed” the lawsuit had been withdrawn.

    “I was hoping they’d keep it going for a few more news cycles,” he said.

    There’s also a tidbit out there somewhere… I can’t find my old link, of Franken making a statement to the court, after dismissal, (from memory) “thanking Fox for bringing the stupidest lawsuit” etc. etc.

    Will be very interesting watching him. I’m not so sure he won’t turn out to be one of our best.

    …

    Sure like to see Reid coin Senator Frist’s “constitutional option” gambit to confront expected rebub filibuster. Whole lot of rhetoric about “obstructionists” seems in order as well.

    • emptywheel says:

      I’m actually really looking forward to committee assignments. Dunno where they’ll put Franken, but he’ll sure lighten up committee hearings.

      • jdmckay says:

        I’m actually really looking forward to committee assignments. Dunno where they’ll put Franken,

        Is there a media/FCC oversight committee?

        but he’ll sure lighten up committee hearings.

        Yep.

        And Coleman’s such an asshole.

        This is change I can believe in.

        I’ve been thinking about that for a couple weeks now, ruminating so many of his funny but poignant comments injected into procedural Senate absurdities. Intelligent humor can be disarming and persuasive. Franken’s demonstrated all that, at least to me.

        Loved that picture of Al & Hillary from your KOS link.

    • skdadl says:

      I’ve been wading through multi kinds of cynical spin this a.m., and suddenly I read somebody who sounds like a reality-based human bean. And you elected that guy to the Senate? You can do that? Wow.

  6. mjvpi says:

    There will be pressure to take C-Span public! C-Span 3 will be ratings driven in respect to the committee that is being televised. “And now we’re taking you live to Sen. Franken and the (insert) Subcommitte hearing…..”I already spend way too much time watching C-Span!

  7. barne says:

    Franken will be smelling salts and tonic. A slick power haircut and cufflinks won’t feel so sexy and important with Franken around.

  8. LabDancer says:

    Thanks for this – mainly as an opportunity to confront myself with the fact that I’ve spent … HOURS, at the office, with the Uptake running in one corner of a screen, watching the proceedings of a CANVASSING BOARD, in a state I’ve visited so little it might as well be a state of mind – while listening on the phone to clients with half or less of my shriveled brain, or to some other lawyer [having exercised caution enough to give full disclosure; one said to me: ooo – I can’t get away with that here – tell me what’s going on – could you move closer to the speaker then I can catch a bit of the feed]; and yesterday, between ads and snaps: “Coleman – Looks like they’re moving into Cover Two – Franken – Franken – Franken – No, it’s a BLITZ – Franken – Colemen – Franken – TOUCHDOWN! Coleman – Franken …”

    You know who realizes how much this means to us? Cornyn for sure – and also for sure the extreme cliffdwellers in the wingoshpere. Go over and smell the hate.

    In my mind’s eye, I see him beside Feingold, co-sponsoring an initiative, and laying down light cover for Whitehouse.

    • readerOfTeaLeaves says:

      I like that view from your mind’s eye.
      As Jean-Luc Picard might say, “Make it so.”

  9. reader says:

    Al is going to be amazing and so worth the wait no matter how long more it takes to get it signed sealed and delivered. I think he’s going to have a huge effect on the Senate. He’ll knock the stuffing out of so much of the bullshit it will be like the Dems have a new secret weapon. Go Al. gosh.

  10. JohnLopresti says:

    This is one contests I have followed occasionally. The bind for the Coleman organization seems to be their December signing of an agreement on the protocol for winnowing absentee ballots, the very process which produced the Franken election victory outcome yesterday. In a demonstration of its sense of impact on national politics, the court even required both organizations to write documents for review Saturday. The best the Republican attorneys seem to have conceptualized is to attempt to renege on their agreement about criteria for absentee ballot counting, and instead demand the state supreme court develop a uniform recount process for a select subset of Republican controlled counties, then do a new recount only in those enclaves. It seems unlikely the courts will follow Coleman’s lame outfit’s last ditch needs as filed, since the original agreement both sides signed in December already was court sponsored. Electionlawblog has followed this closely, and Moritz has a new site which has an excellent layout like an Excel spreadsheet linking live to the court site for the principal court papers which serve as milestones. I think the Republicans will test Reid’s parliamentary agility, and lose. Welcome, Senator-elect Franken. CQ’s game review of the victory yesterday is there

  11. Sara says:

    Well in some respects yes, it all goes back to Paul’s Memorial Service and the mis-use that was made of it by the Wingers.

    I was there. I stood in line for about two hours in the cold and mist, not real rain, just cold-wet. The event was “old home week” for those of us who had worked on Paul’s first Campaign — when he started out after State Convention endorsement at less than 30% name recognition, and at least 30 points down in a head to head with Boschwitz. (and working on Paul’s first campaign for me meant being called “crazy” by all the legislative folk for whom I had managed campaigns over the years, and recruiting and training kids for Celinda Lake who had volunteered her help us do a true baseline poll for the campaign. Like Hell the Campaign could pay for something that professional.)

    But we patched it together with lots and lots of people with various skills, and with very very little money, and we actually won in 1990. After that campaign we all went various ways — but standing in line at the memorial was very much old home week — hugs, kisses, and rivers of tears.

    While standing there, I noticed some college students tearing Wellstone bumper stickers off of cars in a nearby parking lot, and replacing them with Coleman ones. I pointed it out to people, and some went over to deal with them, but I went the opposite direction and got a cop who was dealing with traffic half a block down, and he called help, and the cops then addressed the “bumper sticker replacers for Coleman.” Eventually the first cop I asked to help asked me if I wanted to sign a complaint — and I was just glad they had responded as they did, thanked him, and let it go. Kick myself every day for not officially signing a complaint, and forcing investigation of who sent those “Frat-boys” to ratfuck. My anger goes back at least that far.

    Al Franken was one of the few who understood the DFL and had an insider’s view of what really happened at the Memorial Service to really call out on the winger’s propaganda. But he was also an old Wellstoneian — back in 1990 when we could not see ourselves forward to pay the phone bills and the rent and lights for our HQ, Franken just showed up, did a show, and raised the money. Old time depression style rent party. He may well have spent 20 million on this campaign and the recount, but he also knows the other end of the business too.

    But I had long known the recount would probably come out this way — we have recounted enough elections under current rules to know just about how many DFL’ers fail the test on properly marking ballots for a machine read — but do quite well on the hand court criteria, Intent of the Voter, to know when a recount is worth it. It just takes time to do it absolutely according to the statutes, and slowly so that every matter is addressed.

    There are so many juicy stories from this recount. I like the one where they caught one of the county level Republican ballot counters putting 26 ballots in each pile that were supposed to be just 25 ballots, but only for the Franken Pile. It reminds me of the Frat Boys tearing off Wellstone Bumper Stickers. Republican corruption so deeply buried in every little piece of the process.

    For what it is worth — Paul’s Memorial Service should have been nothing less than a huge loud political rally. That is what he was about, and that is what cemented his people together. Paul was the focus of a powerful progressive politics — that is how he got elected, and there should have been no shame in a straight out alter call for those who made his campaigns, and wanted his politics. Sadly, the campaign managers in the wake of the plane crash were too disoriented to comprehend how it should have been planned and framed. And yes, without question, the recount is the last song in that memorial event, done Minnesota style.

    It was sung at Hubert’s funeral, and while some wanted to do it at the Wellstone memorial, it was sidelined, but when they had a memorial on the Iron Range, they really did it up right. They sang the Ballad of Joe Hill. (we also sang it the night Paul died over at the Capitol). Last Verses go…

    And Standin there as big as life
    And smilin with his eyes
    Joe says what they could never kill
    Went on to Organize.

    From San Diego up to Maine
    In Every Mine and Mill
    Where Workers stand up for their Rights
    Tis there you’ll find Joe Hill.

    So in my mind, we have now pushed Franken forward so he might merit having this sung at his Memorial Service. It is up to him to seize opportunity. It is up to us to make him the Senator he can be.