Looks like Al Franken’s been digging his own grave for decades:
https://twitter.com/AaronBlake/status/931207490871676928
Charming guy, that Al Franken.
Ugh. Gross.
— A Liberal in SF ?? ?️? (@liberalinsf) November 16, 2017
Earlier this year, the New York Times published Molly Ball’s review of Franken’s book, “Al Franken: Giant of the Senate.” In light of the allegations against him today, this bit seems particularly noteworthy:
“Al Franken, Giant of the Senate” is, in part, the story of how Franken became a giant phony — how he pretended to be a serious person in public even as his inner comic monologue never stopped running. He recalls that during the 2008 campaign, he was attacked for such transgressions as a late-night writers’-room joke about raping Lesley Stahl, and a 2000 Playboy article entitled “Porn-o-Rama.” Franken didn’t think he should have to apologize for the cracks, which his opponents were taking out of context. “To say I was sorry for writing a joke was to sell out my career, to sell out who I’d been my entire life,” he writes. “And I wasn’t sorry that I had written Porn-o-Rama or pitched that stupid Lesley Stahl joke at 2 in the morning. I was just doing my job.”
But as the attacks caused Franken to bleed support from women voters, he saw that his explanations weren’t working. “I learned that campaigns have their own rules, their own laws of physics, and that if I wasn’t willing to accept that, I would never get to be a senator.” And so Franken took a deep breath and told a little white lie: “I’m sorry.”
Recommended
Franken apologized to Leeann Tweeden today. But his history suggests he’s not all that sorry about what he did; he’s only sorry he got caught.
Join the conversation as a VIP Member