Yes, it was stupid for Franken to write those abstinence letters on Harvard letterhead (though not quite as stupid as all the money being spent on abstinence only programs).

But Franken is a satirist and writing letters like that has a long tradition including almost CA gov. candidate Don Novello's Lazlo Toth letters and Jerry Seinfeld's Ted L. Nancy Letters from a Nut.

O'Reilly can being to milk this when he figures out what satire is.

IIRC (and I do), there are several similar instances in RLIABFI as well. I'm not convinced of the sincerity of his apology so much as I am that he want publicity (which is his job, after all, as an author trying to sell his book). I can't think of any downside for him from apologizing.

Well the Smoking Gun has his >original letter and the apology.

The letter is satirical and funny.

I think his apology is sincere. He wrote it in July long before all of this publicity. And Franken unlike many people is actually sincere.

The tradition continues on the McSweeneys site with open letters to people or entitites who are unlikely to respond.

Sorry, here are the Franken letters.

The link above is to a contest from the newsletter (though you need to subject yourself to their court tv show to win).

So much for solidarity among 'Als,' I guess.

I'm 100% down with Al Franken here, Miss Diva. He is much more funny and reasonable than most of his vocal opponents, particularly the singularly unappealing personnae of Bill O'Reilly. There is NO crack in Al-solidarity here.

Indeed, if I were of a more conspiratorial mindset, I'd think this pair of letters was all a set-up to screw with the minds of Republicans or staff at FNC, setting them up to make themselves look very bad through their vindictive and likely overreaching responses.

Franken's brilliant.

Dumb? Well, what's more stupid than using Harvard's letterhead to write a letter that's supposed to be satirical and doesn't even qualify as that?

You ask what he's got to be sorry for - read the above one more time, add to it the fact that he lied repeatedly in his letter and that no one can trust anything he has claimed as "fact" in any of his books now. He has plenty to be sorry for. He's made a complete ass of himself, and it's rather entertaining to watch - much more entertaining than his attempts at humor. Do it again, Al!

Franken is just an entertainer who's doing what he does best. I don't blame him for being entertaining. I would rather blame all the idiots out there who take his rants seriously. As with most Hollywood idiots, people give them way more credit than they deserve. Remember: we only know who they are b/c they are exceptionally good at putting on plays. Impressive.

G, Franken does ask to be taken at least somewhat seriously. He is perfectly sincere in his sarcastic comedian's way. He's making claims about many public figures.

I think the Savin' It business is within bounds, but he should be expecting criticism. When he's writing book length political diatribes, he should expect to be held to a somewhat higher standard than when he was just writing SNL sketches.

On the other hand, unlike O'Reilly, Franken can take the heat. I haven't heard him whining about being criticized as O'Reilly has.

"The Democrats Have Made Lying Their Norm"

Posted by Gordon Bloyer



A Democrat claims that the economy is the worst since Herbert Hoover. No reporter says to that Democrat, ''That's not true.'' Why?

Reporters today have no background in history and they do no research. They seem to think when a Democrat says something it is an opinion, or just a point of view. It never crosses their mind that the Democrat is lying.

The Democrats running for president get away with saying that the president lied about the war, that we are in a recession, that unemployment is out of control, that we have the largest budget deficit in history, that budgets for safety-net programs have been cut, and that the election in 2000 was stolen. None of these statements are true--not even close--but reporters just let them slide.

Senator Joe Biden (D), Senator Joe Lieberman (D) and Senator Evan Bayh (D) have all said on national television that the president did NOT lie about the war. Why don't reporters confront the other Democrats with their statements?

The fact is that the economy has been growing for months. A recession is when the economy is negative for three months in a row.

Bill Clinton was president from 1993 thru 2000. Unemployment was higher than the current rate in five out of the eight Clinton years. It was over 6% in three of those years. If the Democrats told the truth, they would say that we have the worst economy since Clinton. The fact is in the last six months of the Clinton years, the economy was headed down and continued that way for several months into the Bush Administration.

The deficit in dollars is the largest in history. That is meaningless. My debt is higher than ever, but it is smaller in relation to my income. It is the same for the deficit. The deficit in relation to the budget is not close to being the largest in history.

No programs have been cut. All programs have increases in their budget, just not as big as the Democrats want or dream about. Life is hard.

All recounts in Florida, including the newspaper statewide recounts, had Bush winning the election. In the Al Gore lawsuit, he never asked for a statewide recount. In the places where Gore asked for a recount the newspaper recount proved that Bush won. How did Bush steal the election?

Let me add these facts for the reporters. In 1980, the last year of Jimmy Carter, inflation was 13.5%, interest rates were over 18%, and unemployment was 5.8% and headed up. How is that for the worst economy since Herbert Hoover? The unemployment rate under Franklin Roosevelt was 24.9% in 1933, 21.7% in 1934, 20.1% in 1935, 16.9% in 1936, 14.3% in 1937, 19% in 1938 and 17.2% in 1939. All of these rates were higher than three out of four of the Hoover years. World War II came along and everyone went to work.

One more thing: President Bush was NEVER AWOL. Get over it.

The truth about all of the above is available by doing research. Why don't reporters do it? They have allowed the Democratic lies to become the norm.

Gordon Bloyer

Hey guy! Just respect to you for what you are doing! And for you know exactly the idea what u r talking about!

Hey Mark, you better double check that Gordon Bloyer form letter you're posting, it has a couple of mistakes in it. By the way I don't think it has any relevance to Franken's book. . You just make Al's case stronger by regurgitating bad information without doing the research your self. That's either lazy or deceitful.