Left Tries to Figure Out How to Bring Back Al Franken
“Would be a great idea if Al Franken got back in the game”
Some people on the left are starting to regret forcing Al Franken to resign his Senate seat last year. They’re trying to find a way to rehabilitate his image but the #MeToo movement has them caught in a catch 22.
Franken himself is chomping at the bit to weigh in on the Kavanaugh hearings.
Emily Jashinsky writes at the Washington Examiner:
Al Franken’s return to politics seems more and more likely
Al Franken’s return to national politics appears increasingly imminent.
USA Today’s decision to give the former senator a 900-word platform in its op-ed section to rage against Judge Brett Kavanaugh this week is another indication of that. “Brett Kavanaugh is a partisan who was nominated, and will likely be confirmed, in order to help achieve the Republican Party’s goals: destroying protections for people with pre-existing health conditions, eradicating what’s left of workers’ rights and, yes, overturning Roe v. Wade,” Franken wrote on Friday, slamming Senate Republicans for “destroy[ing] the independence of our judicial system and turn[ing] it into yet another partisan battlefield.”
Speaking of partisan battlefields, it’s been less than a year since Franken resigned amid sexual misconduct allegations in December — which sympathizers of the former senator still insists never should have happened.
Here’s a bit more from Franken’s column in USA Today:
Kavanaugh Supreme Court hearings showcase Republican partisanship, hypocrisy
The nomination and confirmation of a Supreme Court justice is supposed to be a grave and solemn exercise of carefully apportioned constitutional powers. These Justices, granted lifetime terms in order to insulate them from political considerations, must be exemplars of sound judgment, even temperament and, above all else, impartiality.
I know this because I keep hearing Republicans on the Senate Judiciary Committee say this stuff. But having served alongside them for three Supreme Court confirmations — and now watching Brett Kavanaugh’s confirmation process unfold — I have to say, I don’t think they really mean it.
You know not being able to join the crazy chorus with Booker and Harris during these hearings is absolutely killing him.
— Mike LaChance (@MikeLaChance33) September 6, 2018
Left wing talk host Bill Maher is leading the charge for Franken’s return.
Tal Axelrod writes at The Hill:
Bill Maher: ‘I want to see Al Franken debate Donald Trump’
Comedian Bill Maher called for former Sen. Al Franken (D-Minn.) to “get back in the game” to help Democrats defeat President Trump in 2020.
“We need Democrats to keep a laser focus on the one issue that really matters; finding out what is Trump’s kryptonite. I think it’s ridicule. The one thing that gets under his skin … is being made fun of,” Maher said Friday on HBO’s “Real Time with Bill Maher.”
“To fight him, we need a comedian … I, Bill Maher, think it would be a great idea if Al Franken got back in the game,” he added.
There’s one little problem with that:
Button One: The #MeToo movement is real and vital.
Button Two: We need Al Franken to win elections.
Choose. https://t.co/OeF2sqQOCV— Mike LaChance (@MikeLaChance33) September 9, 2018
Twitchy has compiled some reactions to Franken’s column:
Everybody on the Republican side of the dais knows Kavanaugh’s nomination is purely to further the Republican agenda. Everybody’s in on it. It is maddening. So I wrote about it for USA Today. https://t.co/x0GEEtia5X
— Al Franken (@alfranken) September 7, 2018
I hope USA Today kept its female staff at a safe distance.
— Walt Murray,PI (@waltmurray) September 10, 2018
Wherein “Republican agenda” means interpreting the Constitution as it was debated, ratified, and then amended to keep up with the national desire lo these 27 times.
As opposed to legislating from the bench when you can’t get a majority from the legislative bodies elected.— Jim (@Ifitsthisname) September 9, 2018
Write all you want. He’s going to be confirmed
— Beth Wellington (@beth_wellington) September 10, 2018
Oh look at you trying to stay relevant. Bye Felicia
— Patrick (@batman1793) September 9, 2018
You’ve never been funnier, Al.
— TrollReversal (@Ninjabob1970) September 10, 2018
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Comments
I think this time hey will need a whole truckload of “Found” ballots to fraud him back into office.
Still shocked Franken hasn’t found a permanent gig on MSNBC or CNN. The split personality of the Dem party is showing — #MeToo seems to be boomeranging back to bite the Dems harder than their intended targets.
Hate is such and ugly word and lacking in Christian agape, so let me say instead that I viscerally dislike the fellow. As in really, really dislike.
Didn’t he used to be a joke?
I believe he still is.
I detest Al Franken. But I think he got a raw deal. There was a period of time when any action considered a sexual offense (even the most minor) was a hanging offense. Franken was sacrificed by the Dems thinking that if they forced one of their own out of office they could leverage the action to force out Trump. Franken was an unwitting pawn in a larger scheme. I don’t think he was a party to it. He was used.
Of course he got a raw deal, and every time I think about it I laugh at how someone who had been so eager to dish out the filth throughout his entire career finally got a pile of it dumped on his own head.
And note to Bill Maher – Franken was NEVER funny. Just like you.
Meh. He got forced out on scanty grounds. But he won his first election transparently fraudulently, so his presence there was an affront to begin with.
And let’s not forget the impact of his fraudulent election… he was the final vote the Dims needed to ram Obamacare down our throats.
“Fraudulent Elections Have Had Catastrophic Consequences”
I don’t feel sorry for this waste of oxygen, as he got into the Senate through fraud, and he knows it. He got the raw deal because it was meant to show Trump what to do in the face of allegations against him.
With the timing of #poundMeToo the left were under a lot of pressure, so it was his own side that pushed it. He might think he was effective, but his nasty sound bites were also not helping the leftists as much as this narcissist thought he was.
He resigned because there was photographic proof of one of many times when he played the creep, “joke” or not. It was also a direct shot across the bow against Moore, and being that the leftists had set up that sting operation against Moore they had to play like they were virtuous and force the turd down the bowl.
He was not the true winner of that election that placed him in the senate. Those “found” lost ballots were as bogus as the claims he was a comedian. So, I look at this as sort of correcting the stolen election that put him there in the first place.
“I detest Al Franken. But I think he got a raw deal.”
Exactly. No way can you compare Frankens’ ‘harassment’ with the likes of Harvy Weinstein or Matt Lauer. He was just too wimpy to stand up for himself. Bob Hope did worse but things are different today than they were back in saner times.
I too think he got a raw deal.
Shed no tears for hFranken, he was one mean and nasty piece of work. He got his just deserts, which, when you think about it, is a fairly rare thing anymore– maybe that’s why you want to feel sorry for him.
I didn’t say I felt sorry for him. But what happened at that particular period of #MeToo was insane. Every sexual offense, real and imagined was grounds to destroy people’s (mostly men’s) lives. There was no sense of proportion. Socially, Franken was treated like a rapist, which he was not. (It’s like calling all Republicans “racists” – it leaves no room to identify actual racists and makes the word meaningless.)
And we all know a very famous serial rapist who is still pulling down big money in speaking engagements. Compared to that, what happened to Franken (and others) was grossly unfair.
Hollywood already did this back in ’58, but the abuse of retreads never ends.
“The Revenge of Frankenstein”
Baron Frankenstein escapes from the guillotine and goes to Irrelevant, MN. There, he names himself Dr. Stein and plans to restart his experiments by using parts of dead politicians and hashtags.
Yeah, with all the Dimocrat clowns in Congress, they need Al Franken to drive their clown car.
The fact that a third-rate comedy writer was ever allowed to sit on the Senate Judiciary Committee and “judge” judges just shows how unserious the Democrat Party is about doing what is best for this country
MN has elected a pantheon of nutburgers, for instance Mark Dayton, Jesse ventura and Al Franken. I feel somewhat certain there are plenty more who belong on the list.
How tough can it be? Put a nice rack in front of him and he’ll go anywhere they lead him.
I, Bill Maher, think it would be a great idea if Al Franken got back in the game
Note that Maher did not say “got back in the Senate.” Franken can parrot DNC talking-point nonsense from anywhere. “Ex-Senator” will get him almost as much airtime as “Senator”. If he drones on from outside the Senate, the D’rats can have their #MeToo cake and eat it, too.
“To fight him, we need a comedian … I, Bill Maher, think it would be a great idea if Al Franken got back in the game,”
Great! Where are they going to find a comedian? At best, Mr Smalley is just “alledged”.
I think he has a real chance. All he needs is some prominent Democrat to support him by giving an impassioned speech that ends with “I’m Spartacus!!”
No one on the Left is ever beyond image rehabilitation. Just look at anti-Semitic race hustlers Jesse Jackson, Al Sharpton, Louis Farrakhan, et al. — all still actively courted and feted by the Dumb-o-crat Party standard-bearers and the Leftist media talking heads. I’d throw the vile Keith “Hakim” Ellison on this list, except that he occupies a prominent place at the Dumb-o-crat table, given that he has managed to ascend to the Party’s leadership, in defiance of reason, morality and common sense.
But Franken isn’t tan enough to pull off the hustle as those you mentioned did.
Franken is slightly better off than Eliot Spitzer, or Weiner, but I don’t see him making a come back despite his desires.
“Chomping at the bit” is an eggcorn.
Horses champ, not “chomp”.
I believe they should try to recycle more tired ideas.
Hillary/Nancy for POTUS/VP in 2020!
Hilary/Franken would make for a better Greatest Hits tour. (get it …hits….heheh)
Proving once again that bad ideas never die.
Stanken Franken
Franken staged a demonstration of molesting a sleeping woman. And they laughed, and laughed, and laughed.
That said, the target of #MeToo was, first, Judge Roy Moore, who was denied his civil rights through a trial by press, and merciless slander, and, second, yesteryear’s liberals who were progressive moderates.
Seriously?!! Those of you defending Franken as being “not that bad” or “getting a raw deal” are Republicans in disguise. Right?
DaveGinOly | September 11, 2018 at 10:02 am
I detest Al Franken. But I think he got a raw deal. …..
I think now is the time to remind you the guy committed voter fraud to even be elected in the first place…
Ummmm, did I say “I detest Al Franken”? The comment was not about Al Franken per se (a point that seems to have escaped most commenters) and it was not about his politics or how he got into office (was the article even about that?). It was about how men were being treated as if they were rapist for the most minor offenses. Al Franken happened to be the subject of the article, so he was used as an example of the craziness and to point out how the Dems hung out one of their own hoping to kick-start the resignation of President Trump.
You are right, they hung him out to dry to get Trump now they want a do-over.
Well understand this: The picture of him “molesting” the woman on the USO trip is offensive to women. All women – on both sides of the isle.
I get it, you are thinking it’s just stupid. Yeah…well, he’s not a 18 year old frat boy or comedian, he’s a Senator on a USO trip and she is a professional and is asleep. I assure you, the only women who don’t find that photo disturbing- on many levels – are the dudes who identify as women.
The biggest problem is not that Franken – or anyone, for that matter – may have done things that are objectionable (but not violent). The problem actually is that such issues as these often receive nuclear response far disproportionate to the failing. I’m surprised that nobody has insisted that E no longer equals MC2 because Einstein was a womanizer. An overenthusiastic, non-violent flirtation doesn’t begin to mean that the perpetrator and his work are all meaningless. Far from it: we all err in all kinds of ways. And among these human flaws, intergender errors abound, driven by primitive instincts which society has not been able to extinguish. Fortunately. If violence or power is not involved, the worst that can be said is that the perpetrator shows horrible taste, not that he is an evil and incompetent villain whose entire life must be destroyed, and whose body of accomplishments must be discarded.
Some far worse failings go ignored, while basic human flaws which society can no longer tolerate become so focused upon that far graver injustice is done to the perpetrator than he ever did to anyone else. Franken would appear to be a good case in point, since at worst he was accused of inappropriate behavior, not violent attack. Yet his life has been totally disrupted (well, as disrupted as happens to Congresspersons who go on to fabulous retirement benefits, unlike those of us they “represent”).
This whole “#MeToo” stuff is probably justified. Women needed to fight to be treated as fellow humans, and they still require considerable effort to be treated equally in many workplaces. But over-reaction doesn’t do much to help women, though it can certainly unjustifiably destroy the men so accused. On the other hand, lots of lawyers will make a bundle out of these cascading accusation, so I suppose that’s a good thing, right? We’re nothing if not aggressive Capitalists.
If they are going to run a comedian they might do better with Kevin Hart.
I would so love to have Bill Burr in Congress. I bet C-Span would get a 1000% increase in viewers in a week.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x0gaYyNk7QA
Oh to watch him one on one with Maxine or Booker.
Doggone it, people just don’t like him.
Saturday Night Live. Could enhance the careers of both.