Puff piece on Al "Lootin' for Air America" Franken

Thanks to a colleague who passed this on to me. From a San Franistan online fishwrap, the column is entitled "Is Al Franken Worthy to Take Wellstone's Seat"...despite the pesky little fact that the seat belongs to Coleman and not Wellstone:

Yesterday, comedian Al Franken made it official that he will run in 2008 against Minnesota Senator Norm Coleman. There is no Republican who I want to see defeated more than Norm Coleman – who challenged the late Senator Paul Wellstone in 2002, and only won after Wellstone tragically died in a plane crash.

Coleman, who had been losing to Wellstone in the polls, would have likely lost to Mondale (Wellstone's Democrat replacement) had it not been for the sickening pep rally that occurred at Wellstone's funeral. Continuing:

Paul was the most outspoken progressive in the U.S. Senate, an incredible grass-roots organizer and a relentless critic of the Bush Administration. Norm Coleman is a cynical opportunist who switched parties from Democrat to Republican out of expediency – a “hollow man”, said Garrison Keillor, who “sold his soul for a Senate seat.”

As opposed to former "Republican" Jumpin' Jim Jeffords, whose defection from the GOP in 2001 tilted the Senate from Republican control to Democrat control? Jeffords received his 30 pieces of silver in the form of a Senate committee chairmanship from the new Dem leadership he brought to power. Yet somehow, the left saw Jeffords as a man of "principle", while Coleman is merely an "opportunist"! In other words, leaving the GOP is "courageous" but leaving the Democrats is "calculating". Got it. Thanks for the clarification.

Continuing:

It was infuriating to see so many Democrats apologize for the Memorial Service, as it drove the media narrative that Wellstone supporters were “out-of-line.” But in his book, Lies and the Lying Liars Who Tell Them, Al Franken wrote the most eloquent and powerful chapter I have ever read about what transpired. In 29 pages, Franken shared the anger and outrage that so many of us felt about how we were never really given the chance to properly mourn Paul’s death.

You were given the chance to mourn Wellstone's death. It was at an event known by normal Americans as a "funeral", yet because you squandered the chance that you purport to have never received, it's the right's fault? Good grief, you people are myopic! Continuing:

Despite rhetoric that would make him a “liberal” Democrat, along with his hilarious jabs at Republicans that keep us amused, it is clear that Al Franken is no Wellstone when it comes to the issues.

Such "jabs" include bodyslamming hecklers of Howard Dean and insulting the troops in front of then-Deputy Secretary of Defense Paul Wolfowitz. Yes sir, I bet the left is amused by such displays of statesmanship they think would go well in the Senate.

Where I agree with the author is that Franken is no Wellstone. See, aside from not wanting to physically assault someone, Wellstone also wouldn't have been associated with an organization that looted from inner city kids and Alzheimer's patients. Finally, Wellstone seemed to have compassion for gay people, never "joking" about taking pleasure in seeing a gay man killed (won't see THAT "botched joke" in the MSM, will ya? Maybe Al and Fred Phelps can go gaybashing together?).

You really want this to be your Senator, Minnesota?