Al Franken’s bestselling books (Rush Limbaugh Is a Big, Fat Idiot, Lies and the Lying Liars Who Tell Them) dig up and “debunk” provocative statements made by conservative pundits. Now that he’s running for office, Franken’s every public utterance is under the same scrutiny, and ordinary Minnesotans are meeting the Al Franken that news junkies, bloggers and authors like Peter Schweizer have known about for years: a mean spirited man given to volatile, foul mouthed outbursts.
Critics reminded voters that Franken’s Rush Limbaugh… book featured a short story in which conservative author Bill Bennett gets shot in the head. Televised GOP ads bring up Franken’s 2000 explicit Playboy story called “Porn-O-Rama” (in which his alter ego encourages his 12-year-old son to download bestiality porn) and his “rape jokes” during a 1995 Saturday Night Live story meeting.
The website FrankenLies.com questions the “facts” in Franken’s books, while YouTube.com features numerous videos of Franken losing his temper, pounding desks, blaming Ann Coulter for 9/11 and swearing onstage at a Democratic fundraiser.
Clips of his debate with Coulter show Franken choosing Hitler as the famous figure he’d most like to have been. He promptly adds that he could thereby prevent the Holocaust, but it is doubtful Franken would take that forgiving context into account if Coulter had made the statement.
The whole thing’s here. At FrontPage, pass over the text with your cursor to reveal the hyperlinked “footnotes.” For some reason they aren’t showing up underlined like they usually do.
(Aw, they cut out the “Rich Lowry-is-gay-and-I’m-gonna-beat-him-up” story!)
