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Al Franken
Comedian; Author, Lies and the Lying Liars Who Tell Them: A Fair and Balanced Look at the Right
Answers to Written Questions from the Floor:
Q: You say Americans are mad about the Bush administration. There are those who say that angry citizens in California elected Arnold Schwarzenegger. Do you see a correlation here? And what does that mean, if true?
A: Yes. I do see some trouble. I mean, some people thought this was good news for President Bush because it was good news for Republicans, but I think there's a lot of discontent with incumbents. This may be a bad year for incumbents. I watched this campaign; it seemed to be - at least from the point of view of watching your next governor - the most content-less campaign I've ever seen in my life. It's funny how the Right always goes, "Martin Sheen, just shut up! Susan Sarandon, Tim Robbins, actors - just act! Oh, Arnold Schwarzenegger!" They say his business experience is managing his career. Also, you know what's very hard for a movie star to do in Los Angeles? Open a restaurant. I don't get it. One of my worries comes out of this - please, anyone listening in California, guys, this is not a license to grope Maria Shriver.
Q: What do you think of NPR apologizing to Bill O'Reilly for his performance on "Fresh Air?"
A: Well, they supposedly were apologizing for Terry Gross asking him difficult questions. He is a guy who can dish it out, but can't take it. He says, You know, you come on my show; it's the no-spin zone. My job's to get the truth; I ask the tough questions. He's a bully. My dad always told me to stand up to bullies. He's a bully on the playground who hits other kids. Finally a kid comes up and hits him, he goes crying to the teacher - "Teacher! Teacher! Sue him!" I think it was a disgraceful thing the ombudsman did. I guess the ombudsman's job is to make judgments like that, but I thought it was ridiculous. Considering - I mean, I went through the transcript - he's lying all throughout the whole thing. He said at one point that in the transcript that there are only two authors who've made the New York Times bestseller list with three books - him and Bob Woodward. Gee, that might be a surprise to - oh, I don't know - Danielle Steel, Stephen King, me... I've had four, so maybe he didn't count that.
Q: Rush Limbaugh: liberal compassion for a drug addict, or do we send him up the river?
A: First of all, I have to say that you have to have compassion for anyone who is addicted to drugs, but ... When Jerry Garcia died, Rush Limbaugh called him "just another dead doper" and a dirtbag. Anyone who knew Jerry knew that Jerry was, besides being an incredible musician and an incredible heart, a beautiful mind and the greatest guy. He said the same thing about Kurt Cobain. I don't know Darryl Strawberry, but he said that about him, too. He also said repeatedly that anyone who uses drugs illegally should be prosecuted and sent away. So yes, we should have compassion for Rush Limbaugh, but when he comes out of rehab, I fully expect Rush to take responsibility for his actions. Assuming that what is reported is true (and I don't know how you get addicted to these pills without getting them illegally), I think that he should, to set the right example, turn himself in, ask for the maximum sentence in the most violent prison. There are over 100,000 people in our prisons for possession; if this whole Limbaugh thing should do anything, it should make conservatives in this country reexamine our drug policies and the drug wars. The president, at the last State of the Union address, gave this terrific thing about mentoring kids whose parents are in prison. Well, a lot of them are in prison for drug offenses, and we should think about rehab and not sending people to prison for drug addiction. I hope, in all seriousness, that we can get past the personality of Rush Limbaugh and use this as an opportunity to really examine what our drug policies are, reexamine greater sentencing for crack than for powder cocaine, which is racist. We should really take a long, hard look and begin to have a sensible drug policy in this country.
Q: Has your dear friend Ann Coulter been in touch with you since the book was released? If yes, what did she say? Would you consider a pay-per-view kickboxing match with Ann Coulter? I think you could win if she doesn't cheat.
Franken: That won't happen.
Q: Is Ann Coulter really a devil worshipper?
A: No, yes, no, no, no, yes, no. In my book I kind of analyze Slander and how she cheats and lies, and she has written something on her web site supposedly answering these things, in which she uses the same techniques - misrepresenting what I said about her, etc. If you want to look at her answers to my book, just please read my book first. Her book Treason came out about ten days before I had to put my book to bed, so I didn't get a chance to really analyze it in the same way I got to analyze Slander - but I put it on my bookshelf. And about a week after I finished the book, I was going out to dinner early with my wife, and we're going out the back way through my office, and my assistant was still there. My wife said, "I forgot to put lipstick on." So she goes to put some lipstick on. I turn to Andy, and I see Treason, sitting right there. I go, "Andy, I'll bet you I can find a lie in this book before she gets her lipstick on." So I just open it up to a random page, and - I remember it was 265 - I see "New York Times." So any time I see "New York Times," it's a lie. She's talking about Tom Friedman, the columnist, and she says he blamed 20 years of relentless attacks by Muslim extremists on - I quote - "religious fundamentalists of any stripe." Now, if you know Tom Friedman, that doesn't quite make sense. So I go, "Andy, okay that's it, that's it. We got it. Look up 'Tom Friedman,' 'New York Times,' 'religious fundamentalists of any stripe' on Nexis." I go to the back of the thing - she does these endnotes - I find it. It's December 26, 2001. Boom! Finds that. Kicks it out. And this is the sentence from which she draws the quote in which she says Thomas Friedman blamed 20 years of relentless attacks by Muslim extremists on - I quote - "religious fundamentalists of any stripe." Here's the sentence (it's called "Naked Air"; he's suggesting that everyone fly nude): "If everybody flew naked, not only would you not have to worry about the passenger next to you carrying box cutters or exploding shoes, but no religious fundamentalists of any stripe would ever be caught dead flying nude." What kind of person does that, really? This is serious. How low does your self-esteem have to be in order to say, "The only way I can make a living is to do this"? How loathsome is that? I don't understand it. And it's one after another of these people who do these things. This is a lie. This is a lie and she knows it. Her lies are carefully carved out. O'Reilly just lies off the hip; he doesn't know what he's saying.
Q: Somebody wants to vote for Howard Dean, but they're afraid it will just lead to a Reagan-like landslide. Which of the Democratic candidates do you like best, and why?
A: I like about five of these guys. I've done a fundraiser for Dean. I'm doing a fundraiser for Gephardt, for Kerry, Clark. I met Wesley Clark in 1999; I was in Kosovo, doing a USO tour, and I used to tell this joke - that Colin Powell could have been president if he had wanted to be. Which has led me to the conclusion that the first Jew to be elected president will have to be a four-star general. So it gave me the idea that we Jews should find a high-ranking Jew in the military that we could start grooming for a run at the White House. Unfortunately, it turns out that currently the highest-ranking Jew in the military is the comptroller of the Coast Guard. At Camp Bondsteel in Kosovo, Clark comes up and says, "Hi, I'm Wesley Clark. I'm the NATO commander, a four-star general; I'm half Jewish!" Not only that, his father's Jewish (I think his father died when he was three), his grandfather was a rabbi, his great-grandfather was a rabbi - so that's a Jew. But I like a lot of these guys. Let's just get someone that will beat Bush - I'm on that bandwagon.
Q: If you were still writing for "Saturday Night Live," what Bush administration sketch would you write today?
A: I like Rumsfeld. I would just do a weekly Rumsfeld press conference. One little trope of his: when he's on thin ice, he does this thing where he starts asking himself rhetorical questions and then answering them. And it's always like, Are we going to be the target of another terrorist attack? You bet. Are there going to be massive casualties? Sure. Do we know when and where? Not a clue. Could it be a plane flying in a nuclear reactor? Absolutely. A reservoir poisoned with plutonium? Yeah, I guess that'd do. Am I giving the terrorists ideas they wouldn't otherwise have? Maybe. I don't know. There's another one I would do - you'd have to get either John Kerry or Wesley Clark for this. I just love Bush in the flight suit. This isn't a sketch; it'd be a commercial parody. Maybe we can just use it in the campaign. This is it: You open up with Bush, landing on the thing with the guy who landed the plane - you know, the pilot? And he gets out in the flight suit, and you hear John Kerry in voiceover say, "You know, dress up and make-believe are fun, but when George W. Bush had a chance to be a real fighter pilot in the war, he let his dad get him into the Air National Guard and went AWOL for a year." Then cut to Kerry in Vietnam. He says, "This is me in Vietnam. I'm sorry the picture is so grainy. It was a little too dangerous to get a camera crew in." And then cut to him in a full pirate outfit. You know, with like a moustache and an eye patch, the big hat and the parrot. And then Kerry says, "Yeah, you know, dress up and make-believe are fun, but we need a real president. A real president knows how to create jobs and keep our country safe. Isn't that right, Petey?" "Awwk! That's right!"
Q: Is this an easy audience for you in San Francisco?
A: Obviously this is a liberal bastion, but I've had huge crowds all over this country. I had 1,600 at a book signing - I think it was 1,600 - in St. Louis. I had 1,200 at a book signing in Austin, Texas. Milwaukee, Chicago, Kansas City - huge crowd in Kansas City. There is a tide turning here, and it's going to take everybody on our side, working. I want everybody here to look around you, and look at each other and work and work and work until November of 2004.
