Krugman Says Al Franken's Big Secret Is: He's A Policy Wonk
I just loved this little tidbit from Paul Krugman this morning:
David Broder has a column this morning calling for bipartisanship. I know, you’re shocked. But what struck me was this bit about Al Franken:
Franken, the loud-mouthed former comedian, will be the 60th member of the Senate Democratic caucus …
Two points.
First, implicit in this characterization of Franken is the notion of the Senate as a decorous gentlemen’s club. I doubt that club ever existed in reality; but in any case, these days the World’s Greatest Deliberative Body is, not to put too fine a point on it, chock full o’ nuts. James Inhofe: I rest my case.
Second, Al Franken’s dirty secret is that … he’s a big policy wonk.
I used to go on Franken’s radio show, all ready to be jocular — and what he wanted to talk about was the arithmetic of Social Security, or the structure of Medicare Part D.
In fact, the only elected official I know who’s wonkier than Al Franken is Rush Holt, my congressman — and he used to be the assistant director of Princeton’s plasma physics lab. (The campaign’s bumper stickers read, “My Congressman IS a rocket scientist.”)
So what will Franken do to the level of Senate discourse? He’ll raise it.
No surprise to me.
The way he ripped apart bill o'really's claim of being just a regular guy, who's independent
And ann colter's sloppy research
In Lies and the Lying Liers Who Tell Them
And is considerate enough to give credit to his staff of researchers.
Diabolus est Deus Inversus
have pointed out why a bunch of us voted for Al. Al Franken is my Senator and I couldn't be happier about it.
Is a very smart individual and I believe he will be one of your better Senators and wish you and AL the best. But if you notice Al Franklin was not giving very much support by the democrats , the same as they have silenced Kucinich words in the house and to the American people..
But look what the republicans BS did to your state by keeping Al from taking office for 6 plus months.
Why are the democrats so gutless when it comes to fighting for our citizens and one of their own party members.
Looks as if we have not been watching just who we have been voting for on the democrat ticket and have voted into office republicans on our democratic ticket..
The blue dogs are a fine example of this.
Just how did we every get Pelosi and Reid to be in control of our party and why did Obama put Emanuel in charge of his policies.
Emanuel has openly stated that he is going to move our party to the center , which has to be the center right because most are already in the center leaning to the right...
Some Blue dogs openly were supporting republican candidates in the past elections...
The republicans has their extreme right wing republicans in their party and a lot of their moderate to right wing republicans elected on our democrat ticket..
The democrat party which is in charge of our senate and house , certainly is not the democrats which hold the values of the hard core voters and working class Americans anymore.
Like Obama once stated , they pull the bait and switch with their voters and are moving into the pockets of this Global Empire with their policies and actions..
They are now throwing as much BS around as Bush ,, when he talked of the trickle down BS of giving tax welfare to this Global Empire , his lies to invade Iran to steal their oil , his surge in Iraq in which he paid the insurgent (the ones that were killing our soldiers) not to kill them , his no-bid contracts to Halliburton and Blackwater , his administration's treason to our covert CIA agent , the torture he claim he was not doing while he left as least two of our soldiers which were following his orders to be sentence , disgrace and jailed for.
Well Bush's trickle down policy it mush have trickle down someone's a... because there has been nothing trickling down for the workers in this country..
None
I wonder what the new excuse to cave in to conservatives will be....
Corruption favors the wealthy.
The party does seem to consist of at least two very differing wings: The moderate/conservative wing that's certainly overrepresented in the Senate, and the progressive/left wing which is probably fairly representative of the typical Democratic voter in the House, and vastly underrepresented in the Senate.
I think the only issues where the 60th Senate vote will come in to play consistently are Obama's cabinet and judicial nominees. It's been kept pretty low-key, even in the prog-o-sphere, but the Senate GOP caucus has been delaying a lot of appointments so far.
Don't try to confuse the issue with half-truths and gorilla dust.
Harry Reid, alone in his hotel room, calls for room service.
"Hi. I'd like one of your hamburgers, please."
"Coming right up. Anything else?"
"No, that will be all, thanks. I never really liked burgers, believe it or not, even as a child. Still don't."
"Sir, you can order anything from the menu. I can have one brought to you if you'd like."
"No, thank you. I'm reading off the one in my room now."
"But you said you don't like what you just ordered?"
"Well, I'm quite pleased I didn't order a cheeseburger. But sometimes life calls for compromise."
Harry Reid will find one.
That description of the Senate as a decorous gentlemen's club sounds more apropos for a description of a gay bar.
Diabolus est Deus Inversus
I cried when Air America signed its exclusivity agreement with XM (Sirius guy, here), but only because I lost Seder and Maron. While I love Al to death, his Air America show wasn't nearly as entertaining as it could have been. But it was informative.
Don't try to confuse the issue with half-truths and gorilla dust.
Well that won't go over well at all with the Status Quo...I'm that's a scary prospect to the idiots who have built a career on finger pointing and blahblahblahing.
me-oww!
hey he's a a Harvard Grad with a degree in Government...
....very WONKY...
They'd rather have someone stupid without the capacity for critical thinking so they can be manipulated ... sort of like Sarah Palin. Oh, yeah, she just killed any chance for ever becoming POTUS. Thank God!
The problem with that strategy is that sometimes you get someone who is so stupid and crazy that they can't just be manipulated, they just "go rogue". Palin and Bachmann being the best examples. They're good for distracting attention, like Zaphod Beeblebrox, but not for putting in any real position. For that you need someone like W, not completely stupid but simpleminded and uninquisitive.
I would sometimes get irritated by his willingness to go into the weeds of policy, and to be unwilling to condemn any deviation from the One True Politics. In fact, Franken is a very moderate, reasonable politician. In the best sense, not in the Sellout sense, like Ben Nelson and before him, Lieberman. Prediction: the weakness of the name-calling brand of politics is that it gets more and more obvious that those who use it are more or less completely detached from reality.
Broder is such a weak-minded idiot, the very impersonation of the Our Club style of Villager. He's one of the leaders in the malicious gossip club, at least since he spread the false news that Ed Muskie was "crying" in the snows of New Hampshire when he was protesting the false smear of the "Canuck letter" -- which, it turned out was a forgery spread by the Nixon campaign. Not that Broder would have noticed.
while insulting the newest member of the Dem caucus. That sums up Broder's view of bipartisanship to a tee.
No surprise to anyone who's read his books or even seen/heard him commentate.
Sad, before he got into politics, I used to respect him. To think he'd sink from a comedian to a politician. Shame.
"Loud mouthed" comedian? Obviously Broder has no knowledge of Franken's career, or reality for that matter. Broder is making Franken sound like Lisa Lampennelli or Artie Lange.
even the stuff he wrote totally stoned
Franken was pretty sober compared to his comedic counterparts, especially his old writing partner, Tom Davis. I read Davis's memoir recently, and it was one of the most incoherent books I've read ever. Davis hardly talked about writing. It was mostly that he did a lot of drugs, partied with Jerry Garcia a lot, did more drugs, etc., etc..
These conservatives are the real comedians. They voted for a man who was nothing more than a B movie actor with no political experience or training. Reagan's best acting was as president, his second best was when he played second fiddle to a monkey. What is it with California and voting for actors to political office? Ahhnold, Reagan, Eastwood, Bono?
Franken went to Yale and studied politics, has written books on politics, hosted and help create a political radio network. What Franken will bring to the Senate is a hell of a lot more than Reagan brought tho the white house.
is intended to be a factual statement
Reagan, Arnold, and Bono yes, but Eastwood isn't like those others.
Arnold is majorly screwing up the state, and we all know how Reagan turned out. Just because actors kick butt in movies doesn't mean they do it in real life.
Clint ran for mayor once of Caramel by the Sea, a small coastal town, and served for 2 years. He never ran again.
Clint's also one of America's finest filmmakers, and one of my personal favorites.
I love Clint, both as an actor and a filmmaker. Some of his best work is his more recent. Unforgiven, Pale Rider, Mystic River, Million Dollar Baby, Gran Torino, Bird etc... I could have done without the Bridges of Madison County and the two with the ape. Still, it's California over valuing their movie stars.
is intended to be a factual statement
it's California over valuing their movie stars.
That I can totally agree with. California are way too star struck. You think it wouldn't be that big of a deal to them considering so many celebrities live there. They're getting screwed with Arnold big time, though. Maybe they'll think next time they vote for a big movie star for office, or more than likely not.
Clint's recent work is astonishing to say the least. Million Dollar Baby is a masterpiece. Gran Torino is wonderful, too. I love the two WWII films as well.
I like Bridges of Madison County too. It was a mature love story, even though I've heard the novel was a piece of crap.
That Nazi Gopher from the Love Boat.
Personally, I thought his Air America show was outstanding, he clearly showed that he is articulate, intelligent and educated. He will make an outstanding senator. BTW, various web sites list his BA from Harvard as either General Studies or Political Science. It was not in Government. Later, he was however, a Fellow in the Kennedy School of Government - he used a class he taught to have the students do research for Lies as he describes in his book.
I guess Broder likes Inhofe better, the guy who denies global warming and who wouldn't meet with Sontamayor. I guess that's classy and bipartisan in Broder's universe.
I wonder if David Broder will ever figure out how incredibly irrelevant he is. No wonder newspapers are on their deathbeds.
True. Broder's out of touch journalism (and others like him) is what is killing newspapers.
Broder's WaPo fired the best journalist they had in Froomkin. And Broder's still on the payroll.
he is trying to stay above the fray of responding to the wingnut talkers
that is gonna totally drive loofa boy crazy
I have heard every commentator on the right AND on the left begin their Al Franken analysis with the premise that he is crude, rude, vulgar, classless, clueless, etc. Like everything else in political "journalism," it doesn't have to be true if everyone agrees to say it's so.
He showed great restraint against Coleman, a guy who invites parody and satire. I really liked his radio show, it was informative to the max.
I just hope I'll still be glad about it a few months from now. The democrats no longer have any more legitimate excuses. If they continue the route they've been taking, I'll finally understand why so many republicans (real ones, not the fascists), believe that democrats can't be trusted.
I find it extremely onerous that Franken is going to go in and be a "policy wonk". Are they trying to imply that he will actually be doing his job?
Sounds kind of sinister to me.
I cracked open "Lies and Lying Liars" in a bookstore the other day, expecting it to be nothing but a rant.
I read what Franken had to say about the Terry Schiavo fiasco, and found his arguments thoughtful and well-documented. He didn't spare Democrats in his criticisms, either.
Let 'em whine and moan about Franken all they want. It only gives him the opportunity to confound his critics and enlarge his political base.
He has an astounding sense of humor. He has always made me laugh. And I did read most of his books. He will be a fantastic senator. I wish he was my senator but I have a couple of real a**holes to rant about: Cornyn and Hutchison. They are so completely republican idiots it makes me ill. And stupid-completely and unequivically stupid. Al Franken is intelligent, caring, and witty person.
I have Neugebauer and Hutchinson. Cry me a river.
I see your Neugebauer and Hutchinson and raise you a Lincoln and a Pryor.
"When are we going to stop trying to tell elected officials what to do. Our job is to spend the taxpayers' money the best way we can." -- Tommy Watkins, Justice of the Peace, Crawford County, Arkansas
I'm pretty sure they violate the Truth in Packaging Act of 1966.
Come on, I've got Roberts and Brownback. With Fred Phelps singing the chorus in the background.
For this pathetic column on bipartisanship and the "loudmouth Franken"...
I tried to leave three or four mildly critical posts of Broder and was deleted for violations of WaPo policy...they're getting kind of sensitive there. I suspect there are four times as many comments that you see that didn't get posted.
They have huge traffic in comments, but 98% of them are mocking, angry and snarky...
There should be some kind of rating system that records positive and negative hits for a rating, but I guess like publicity, any hits are good hits for revenue.
wagonjak
So what will Franken do to the level of Senate discourse? He’ll raise it.
no kidding about that.
it was listening to al's AAR show every day, from day one, that taught me so much... and not just from al - because, actually, i would yell at him occasionally to shut up and let the guest finish the point, al had so many questions - but from those guests...
yes, i remember krugman... and david brooks, and david sirota, and christy harvey - which is how i found CAP/ThinkProgress - and, oh gee, who else? ... so many smart and insightful guests...
thanks for the education, al... you'll do great work...
i know you want to make paul wellstone proud and carry on in his honor.
and that's a most admirable aspiration!
Katherine Lanpher of couerse, Joe Conason, Jonathan Alter, Norm Ornstein, Melanie Sloan, Dahlia Lithwick, Tom Oliphant, Lawrence O'Donnell, Studs Terkel... many of whom had their own theme songs.
Who else (besides Mark Luther)?
and positive comments on Al. And I agree with all of them. I'd be very proud of Franken if he was my Senator. You go Al!!
..if he was B.C. Canada's Premier.
The only regret I have is that this means that I will need to wait even longer for even a possibility of a Stuart Smalley sequel. Oh well, my tiny disappointment is Minnesota's huge gain.
Darn, I love that movie though.
But later on when he was on Air America I began to like him a lot.
He is a very smart guy, and I think the people of Minesota did well.
Good luck Al and stick their feet in the fire.
republicanism is a mental illness!
a liberal who fights back against right-wing bullies. For awhile, it was only Franken fighting the good fight.
Krugman is right about that. Franken comes into office with an incredible depth of knowledge about current events relative to the average congressman. I hope he can use that knowledge to convince other senators to do the right thing despite their obligations to lobbyists and I hope he can communicate those issues and the rationale for his votes to Minnesotans. And I hope he isn't too cozy with the DLC and is willing to fight for liberal values.
Wow, the Reslugs just can't stop crying and bedwetting over the Dems having the majority and they can't continue their corrupt crimes of the last eight years.
still worth it to go back and read his book Rush Limbaugh is an Idiot.Good for alot of lols
The Wonk is going to Washington, Can't wait for the visuals.
Comments are closed on this entry