Norm Coleman

Fuck me running. 

ST. PAUL, Minn. – The Minnesota Supreme Court on Tuesday ordered that Democrat Al Franken be certified as the winner of the state's long-running Senate race.

The high court rejected a legal challenge from Republican Norm Coleman, whose options for regaining the Senate seat are dwindling.

Justices said Franken is entitled to the election certificate he needs to assume office. With Franken and the usual backing of two independents, Democrats will have a big enough majority to overcome Republican filibusters.{...}

But wait...there's more:

{...}Coleman's appeal hinged largely on whether thousands of absentee votes had been unfairly rejected by local election officials around the state.

The unanimous court wrote that "because the legislature established absentee voting as an optional method of voting, voters choosing to use that method are required to comply with the statutory provisions."

They went on to say that "because strict compliance with the statutory requirements for absentee voting is, and always has been required, there is no basis on which voters could have reasonably believed that anything less than strict compliance would suffice."

So let me see if I've got this straight: the Minnesota Supreme Court just ruled that the law, when it comes to absentee voting, is the law, and anyone who doesn't comply by it shouldn't expect to have their ballot counted?  Thanks for the clarification, Captains Obvious.  Now, why don't you go and tell us that 2+2=4?  The point of this whole exercise was that the law, when it comes to absentee balloting, was applied inconsistently from county to county.  Equal protection under the law, assholes.  It's part of the Constitution.  You might want to look it up.  

Yeah, yeah.  I know.  As Captain Ed says, no one should have expected this argument to win in the state courts, and that Coleman would have a better chance with this line of reasoning in the Federal courts, but what the hell, people.  What.The.Hell?

This is just one more insult on top of all the injuries. 

You'd have to be an idiot to live in Minnesota and not know that the DFL is the party that wields the majority of the power around here. It was no secret that there was a well-oiled machine behind certain actions. Like booting Rod Grams from office, and putting that idiot Mark Dayton in, instead. The DFL made that happen.  All of Mark Dayton's money would never have bought him Grams' senate seat if he hadn't had the DFL behind him. General priorities were decided, and effort was directed toward making those priorities reality. 

The thing was, the DFL'ers weren't, to my mind, overly obnoxious about it.  They were just supporting their side of things, and they were doing it well; it was up to the Republicans to up their game in response, if they wanted to wield more political power.  Given that there was a large base of support for their actions, the DFL was able to claim that this was what voters wanted, as well, and never mind that they had the cash from said voters to get what they wanted.  Contrary to what the DFL would have you believe, however, there have always been and will always be Republicans in Minnesota.  Yet, as the Republicans' share of the vote became larger and larger, the DFL, obviously, decided it had to double-down and work harder.  No matter how much I loathe everything they stand for, I've never felt that they'd rigged the game before. Have they played dirty?  Had they played like they were out to win?  Sure.  On both counts.  That's just politics.  No one should think the Republicans would have done any differently should the shoe have been on the other foot.

But this decision is beyond the pale.  Of course the Supreme Court is simply ruling on the case as its come to them, but all of the rulings put in by the election commission and the lower courts have successfully whittled away at Coleman's arguments, and evidence, to the point where the court has cover to rule as it has. 

This ruling is so far out of whack that I can come to no other conclusion than that the DFL machine has decided they now have to take power by hook or by crook, and they're not above collusion to get what they want: which was Al Franken as senator in a filibuster-proof Democratic Senate.  I was more than willing to give them the benefit of the doubt. I was more than willing to let the legal process run its course on this recount, hoping that someone would come to their senses and stand up for what is right, but, now?  Whatever Coleman decides in regard to a Federal appeal, I've lost all faith in the institutions of the Great State of Minnesota (which, as it happens, I just had to pay $246 today---for license plate tags. Even though it was due a month early due to a clerical error.  See what all your taxes buy you?  People who are unable to count to twelve. Ironic, no?). Why should I bother to cast a ballot in the next election? Why should I put my faith in the system to get it right when it's patently obvious that they fiddled with said system to get the result they wanted? Do I have any proof to back up my claims?  No.  But we never will have, either.  They've covered their bases and now the rest of us just have to live with it.

And what have we got now?  Stuart effin' Smalley as a United States Senator. 

Which is bad enough, until you think about the simple fact that even if he hadn't run, and some other schmuck had received the honor and the race had been close, said DFL schmuck would have just been declared the victor in the senate race. 

The magnanimous, Scott "Brains" Johnson, over at Powerline gives the rundown on what's going to happen today with the trial over Norm Coleman's election contest. 

Go read.  It's the best summation you'll get all day.

Go Norm, GO! 

Apparently, since Harry Reid got away with seating Roland Burris, he's going to try to seat Al Franken. Despite what he put on the senate record on January 6, 2009.

I don't think so.

This contest is not over.  Not by a long shot .  For Harry Reid to seat Al Franken, even provisionally, before the results of Norm Coleman's legal challenges are in, is a blatant power play.  The strategy here is simple: seat Franken while he has the opportunity to do so, thus legitimizing Franken's supposed win and Franken himself.  This would make it that much harder for Norm Coleman to reclaim what is his.

This cannot stand.  Harry Reid cannot even possibly think about doing this, not if he wants the United States Senate to have any legitimacy.  Not that I think he cares about that, but I do.

We've heard a lot in these last couple of months about disenfranchised voters here in the state of Minnesota, and how every vote should count, well what about my vote? Is my vote worthless?  It would appear to be so, because I managed to register properly, I presented the proper identification when I showed up to vote, and because I filled out my ballot properly and put it into the optical scanner correctly.  I did everything right.  I knew the burden was on me to make sure everything was in order before I went to vote otherwise I would be denied the privilege of doing so.  But it would seem that people who had absolutely no clue about how to fill out a ballot, or who did not make sure they had the proper identification to prevent voter fraud, or any number of irregularities, have more right to have their ballots counted than I.  How, exactly, is this fair?  

We heard a lot of bitching over recent months about how people who are responsible about paying their mortgages, their car payments, and their taxes are being screwed over in favor of people in forelosure; over rich investment banks who made bad investments; or even large insurance companies who were supposedly too big to take a hit, etc. When is someone going to point out that this is exactly the same thing that's happening in Minnesota in respect with ballots cast in the senate race?  The responsible are discounted, forgotten, while the retards get special privileges.  ( And, no, I don't think "retard" is too harsh a word to describe these nimwits.) That I voted for Norm Coleman counts doubly against my ballot.  The Democrats, and Harry Reid in particular, are all about making sure every vote counts.  Supposedly.  Yet their hypocrisy reeks when push comes to shove, and they're more than willing to discount the fact that Norm Coleman originally came out 225 ballots ahead when the votes were first counted.  They want Norm to step down, Al Franken wants Norm's lawsuit over the recount to be dismissed and has filed accordingly, and Harry Reid, and his willing accomplice, Amy Klobuchar, the other senator from Minnesota, want Franken seated before the lawsuit is decided, to, again, legitimize his supposed win.  If you watched the first video from the local news, it would be fair to assume that the local media would like Coleman to step down as well, simply because they're tired of it.  Notice how little they focused on Coleman and his challenges; notice how they tried to humiliate Norm by saying his day was mostly spent cleaning out his office.  When contrasted with Franken meeting with the senate majority leader, it's not hard to suss out which conclusion they'd like their audience to come to.  

This election has become a joke---and not only that, it's become a Will Ferrell joke: it's one that goes on WAY too long for anyone's comfort.  No sane person could possibly come to the conclusion that it would be in everyone's best interest for Coleman to drop his legal challenges. Never mind the fact that there's a senate seat are riding on it, the fact that it appears our previously sturdy and reliable electoral system here in Minnesota has been completely corrupted should be enough reason for Norm to fight on.  If Norm is all about public service, as he said in the past, then he needs to get out there and vigorously make his case, because the only people right now who are doing that are his opponents.  There are two many inconsistencies in the recount, too much partisanship on behalf of the Secretary of State, Mark Ritchie, too many questions that are unanswered.  While it is incredibly sad that the courts have to sort this mess out, Coleman hasn't been given any other option in a matter.  You can hardly blame him for taking the avenue left available to him.  But, I would suspect, that in the next few days the calls for Coleman to step down will get louder and louder, and Franken's massive media machine, the DFL, will be screaming the loudest, further trying to legitimize Franken and get him seated.  

This isn't just about Minnesotans being disenfranchised. This is about the leadership of a particular party in the upper house of our Congress trying to stack the odds against his opponents by any means possible. If you don't think this could happen with your elected officials, you're absolutely, 100%, wrong.  If this precedent is allowed, don't be surprised when the majority leadership refuses to seat an opponent they have a particular animus toward, no matter how big a blowout they won by, because it will happen. They will think they can get away with it. That is not the way things work in our Republic.  By the people, of the people, for the people, remember?

There are a number of things you can do. First, you can call Harry Reid's office at (202) 224-3542, and in a very respectful tone, with very careful wording, express your displeasure with the idea of seating Franken.  Second, you can contact the elected officials from your area, particularly your senators, and do the same. Third, you can donate money, if you've got a few extra dollars available in your wallet, to help Norm cover his legal fees, go here and give what you can. Norm is not a rich man. He lives in the basement of a friend's house in DC.  He and his wife live in a very middle class house over in St. Paul.  He had to put up his retirement savings as collateral for his kids' student loans.  He needs all the financial help he can get.  The more money he has, the more vigorous defense he can put up. It's just that simple. Lawyers and PR people don't work for free, and he needs their help. You can help him get that help by donating some money to his cause. If nothing else, a few bucks in the kitty will help boost him up; he seems somewhat defeated right now, and who can blame him, but he needs to get his fighting attitude back and there's no better way to do that than by supporting him. Fourth, you can contact Al Franken at the DSCC (202) 224-2447 (there's no phone number listed on his official site and this, apparently, is where he's working out of) and tell him to stop his efforts to be seated until all the legal challenges are settled. It's not like he's going to listen, and I suspect his staffers will probably hang up on you, but what the hell. Give it a go.

I know people all over the country are tired of this race, and I don't blame them one iota for being disinterested in it. But more is at stake here than just a Republican senate seat. Sure, go ahead and frame it that way if you need to, but Harry Reid is trying very hard to deny the will of all the voters who cast their ballots for Norm Coleman.  This is a horrible precedent. If he goes ahead and seats Franken, again, don't be surprised if he tries to pull the same stunt with someone else, no matter how many votes are behind them.  He's not only try to disenfranchise Minnesota voters, he's trying to set a precedent where he can ignore the will of voters all over the country. That's not right. Don't let him get away with it.
 

Ok, that's it.  We're moving. 

Franken to be delcared Senate victor in Minnesota

No more putting up with the snow.  No more will I think ten below is "balmy"  after a week of twenty below temperatures.  No more living on the frozen tundra.  No more nanny state bullshit.  No more taxes up the wazoo.  No more mosquitos the size of eggs.  

I REFUSE to live in a state represented by Stuart Effin' Smalley in the goddamn senate.

Normy boy, you'd better get yourself some better lawyers, because if your challenges to this ATROCIOUS result don't work, I'm moving to Texas.

Start throwing spaghetti at the wall, my boy.  Something's gotta stick, sooner or later.

Al Franken has truly plumbed a new depth in this recount business. His idea, in case you couldn't be bothered to watch the video, is to show the people who had their absentee ballots rejected. Even though they claim they didn't do anything wrong!  Never mind the fact that he even manages to exploit a quadriplegic for his own crass, political gains.  (Nicely done, Al.  Way to be diverse.  I can only imagine how that casting call went.  Franken's people's probably couldn't believe their luck and succumbed in a heap of spastic joy right there in the poor man's  living room )

Well, see here's the dealio, people.  If you don't fill out your ballot precisely as the election boards require, it's going to be rejected.  If you don't put your driver's license number on the envelope, it's going to be rejected, even if you don't have a driver's license.  How the hell is an election judge going to know that the reason you didn't fill that part out is because you don't have one?  They're going to assume that you messed up, and since they have no way of verifying who you are, it's going to be thrown into the slush pile.  There is nothing new or earth shattering about this.  The election officials NEED TO KNOW who you are, so that ballots are not being submitted willy nilly.  It's called "preventing election fraud," and if your ballot was properly rejected or improperly rejected makes no difference: there was something about it that set off alarm bells, hence it was rejected.  Duh.  It's not that hard, people.  I almost wasn't able to vote this election cycle because we'd just moved, and my driver's license did not have my current address on it.  I'd already applied for a new license----it just hadn't arrived yet and they weren't willing to take the piece of paper the DOT hands out as a temporary license in place of the real, laminated thing.  Fortunately, I had my new registration card and they were able to make it work that way. They need these bits of evidence to make sure that the process isn't corrupted.  That there is only one vote per person.  That there will be no ballot box stuffing.  It's just that simple.

If you assume that the bureaucracy is working for you, and that the burden is on them to get things right, I don't know what state you're living in because it sure as hell isn't Minnesota.   The burden is on you, and that means paying attention when there isn't a tight race, capisce?  It's your government after all, pay attention.  To illustrate this point, as I've mentioned before, during the 2004 presidential elections, I went to vote, but the husband couldn't, because he'd had his civil rights revoked per his DWI felony conviction. However, his name was still on the rolls, and he could have voted if he'd wanted to.  How do I know this?  Because I saw his name in the register, just below mine.  He didn't do it, but it became abundantly clear that the registrar hadn't been informed of his legal status at that point in time, even though it was more than a year since his revocation.  He was finally off the rolls in 2006, but there's obviously some lag time.  Earlier this year, when his civil rights were reinstated, the first thing he did was to register to vote, as he knew it might take some time to straighten things out.  Experience had proved as much.  

This is the thing that fries me about these recounts, and all the legal challenges that arise in their wake.  Every vote should be counted, yes.  But not every vote is for various reasons, and this happens all the time---it only matters when the race is close.  Everyone was shocked when it was released that there were thirty some ballots in the back seat of some election judge's car.  They weren't secure!  Are they fake?  They weren't secured!  How do we know they're for real? and so on and so forth.  This happens all the time with elections.  This isn't anything new.  Elections are messy things.  There is a lot of paper involved.  They are run, by and large, with volunteer help.   Things we don't generally like, such as the questionable security of ballots, will generally happen in such an event.  But we don't care about such irregularities when a race is a blowout.  We don't care about rejected ballots then.  We assume that everything was copacetic.  Most people move on with their lives and don't think twice about it.  But when things don't go as planned, and the race is tight as it can possibly be, well, EVERY VOTE SHOULD COUNT, DAMMIT! 

Allow me be a bit of a stick in the mud here, but no, every vote should not count because not every vote is valid.  I'm not talking about the content.  I'm talking about the fact that people don't fill their ballots out properly.  They don't sign them.  They don't provide accurate information.  They've moved and they give the wrong address.  Whatever. If these people had shown up at the polls, they wouldn't have been allowed to vote at all, so why should the fact that they submitted absentee ballots be any different?  The only reason the people in the video above knew their ballots hadn't been counted, I'd wager, was because Al Franken's campaign contacted them.  Look, I've got some experience with this.  Back in the day, I was on the All University Election Committee at Iowa State.  I worked on one student election (actually two, because the original results were contested), which doesn't really compare with actual elections, but there are a number of base similarities---in that people need to be eligible to vote, and if they fill their ballot out incorrectly, said ballot is automatically rejected. Fair or unfair, as you please, but it is necessary that there be no doubt about the results.  Integrity is essential, because, if the whole system breaks down, so does our democracy, and it's irrelevant as to whether it's an election for a college student body president, or if it's a presidential race.  If the process has integrity, people will know their vote, most likely, counted, and they will have faith in the results.  If people don't have faith in the results, if they think the system has been gamed somehow, they will not take their place in our democracy, which is participatory in nature and needs them to survive.  It's absolutely essential.  For all that happened with Bush v. Gore in 2000, for all that was said and done, for all their bluster, the people who believed that particular race was stolen nevertheless still participated in the system.  They became activists, rather than secessionists.  That is important. 

When there's a tight race, rank, stinking partisanship becomes the judge, jury and executioner of the integrity of elections.  This is not good, to put it mildly, and it fries me whenever these recounts happen because the subsequent behavior of the candidates and their surrogates is absolutely inexcusable.  They deem it necessary to call the entire system into question to serve their own aims, yet when the dust settles, they never do anything to help shore up the integrity of the same system they challenged when it served their purposes to do so. 

Dogs and cats must now be living together in peaceful harmony.  The Strib has endorsed Norm Coleman.

Truly, the world has been turned upside down. 

Money quotes:

Count this newspaper among the Minnesota voices that long for a lessening of partisan polarization and a return to constructive problem-solving in Washington. If demonization of the partisan opposition continues to be the political coin of this realm, effectiveness of American democracy will be diminished.

Independent judgment, exercised on behalf of the best interests of the country and state, is what we hope to see from our U.S. senators. With that hope in mind, this newspaper recommends the reelection of Republican U.S. Sen. Norm Coleman.

The more independent, pragmatic Coleman emerged when he helped speed money to Minneapolis for a new Interstate 35W bridge; when he promoted tax credits for renewable energy investment; when he pushed for larger Pell Grants for needy college students; when he stood up to President Bush on extending publicly subsidized health insurance, including MinnesotaCare, to more poor children and their parents.

He showed good judgment most recently when, despite a tide of constituent opposition, he voted to authorize spending $700 billion to inject capital into banks and thaw a credit freeze. He rightly judged that quick action was needed to avert serious damage to the nation's economy.{...}

We bank our hope for a less polarized America with Coleman, despite accord with DFL challenger Al Franken on some important issues. However, we consider his recommendation for a "no" vote on the economic bailout package the wrong call at the wrong time.

Franken is a gifted communicator. His best-selling books skewering the Bush administration and the Republican right helped revitalize the Democratic Party when it was on the ropes. He's an effective critic. It isn't as easy to envision him as a constructive force for bipartisan legislation.{...}

While a. newspaper endorsements don't really mean much in terms of swinging voters one way or another and b. it's laughable that the editorial board of the Strib now suddenly wants more bipartisanship (HA!), it's nonetheless laudable that they called this one correctly.  They finally looked past their own liberal agenda and saw the truth.  I doubt this conversion is on the level of St. Paul being struck blind in Damascus, but it's nice to see they finally have some sense, because I've been wondering about that for quite some time now. 

Al Franken is a joke candidate.  If elected, he will be an embarrassment along the lines of Jesse Ventura and, honestly, we don't need that.  If Al Franken gets elected, we will be the laughingstock of the nation. And that's no joke.  He will offend people, he will polarize them....he will do everything we already know doesn't work.  Norm Coleman can serve us better and more effectively than Al any day of the week and twice on Sundays.  He knows what kind of work needs to be done.  And, quite frankly, as much as I don't appreciate long-time incumbents, along the lines of Robert Byrd, I do think we need someone in the senate who knows the ropes, and won't be starting out at square one.  Minnesota's senate seats have churned through a lot of people in the past ten or twelve years.  It's time for some consistency.  Because, beyond the fact that he'd be a freshman senator, Al Franken knows literally nothing about being a senator and what the business of governing entails.  I'm pretty sure he just wants the gig because he can always be on tee vee whilst bloviating on the senate floor, even if it's only C-Span.  C-Span, undoubtedly, has a bigger audience than Air America ever did. 

*with huge apologies to Steve-o for stealing his line. 

The husband has sorted the issues, and now we have photos...

As you can see, the place was packed.  Also, somewhere in this photo is our obnoxious EX-neighbor. 

more, and more people. 

Where we were standing allowed us to view the podium, but also allowed us to see what was going on "backstage."  And here comes' Rudy.  The man really does exude a lot of confidence.  And if the pesky uber evangelicals hadn't freaked out about him (and he hadn't pulled that idiotic Florida gambit) we could have had HIM for President.  How do you think HE'd hold up against The One?  Eh?  Eh? 

No, I'm not bitter.  Really.  I swear.  

I'm getting better at jockeying for photos.  I yelled "RUDY" when he walked by.  He ignored me, but the staffer on the right?  He was paying attention to moi.  Heh.  

Yes, they had humongous lamps that were in the way.  I don't know whose idea it was to cram all those mayors on stage, but it looked a little ridiculous, given the stage was the size of a postage stamp. 

Norm!  Norm looks pretty tan, if you ask me.  I know he hasn't had time to go down south, so I'm assuming it was simply the tee vee makeup. 

There were exactly two homemade signs that I could see.  This was one of them.

And here's Rudy doing a little bit of gladhanding after the speeches were over with.  I was impressed with him on a public basis.  He is a good public servant, but I saw something yesterday that didn't impress me very much.  After the event was over with, obviously, he got mobbed with people who wanted his autograph or wanted their photo taken with him. That's fine and everything, but Rudy had to bear up between each and every one of these photo ops.  He was upbeat and friendly for the photo, but when he had a moment in between these photo ops, he looked weary of the whole business. You could see him slump down a bit, his face relaxed into exhaustion, like he was mentally sighing at the tediousness of it all.  That he still made himself available, even though he wasn't in the mood, says something good about the guy.  He should simply learn how to hide his discomfort and weariness a little bit better, lest people get the wrong idea.

I should mention, too, that Norm is having another rally this evening, in St. Paul, before the debate, outside the TPT building at 4th and Sibley at 6p.m. A debate warmup, if you will.  Show up and be loud if you're over in that neck of the woods this evening.  Latest poll numbers have Norm back by four---which he can pick up if people start helping. 

Norm's pulling out the big guns today. 

Former New York City Mayor Rudy Giuliani is in Minnesota today and Friday campaigning for the reelection of Minnesota Sen. Norm Coleman.

At 3 this afternoon, Giuliani, Coleman and several mayors in Minnesota hold a rally at the Hotel Sofitel in Bloomington, 5601 W 78th St.{...}

The husband and I are going to be in attendance. 

I have a perverse desire to see Rudy in person.  Besides, if Norm's pulling Rudy out on the trail, he obviously needs the help.  (And, seriously, I cannot for the life of me understand why Norm would need the help.  Al Franken is just a flaming idiot carpetbagger.  I do not understand why this guy has any appeal to Minnesota voters.  I really don't. It makes no absolutely no sense if you live here, and know the people I know who have Franken signs in their yard.  They're nice people and you'd never in life think they'd support such an asshole. )

I'm taking the digital recorder and the camera, but am leaving the laptop at home.  While undoubtedly the Sofitel has wi-fi, I just don't feel like lugging the thing around.  Check back later for the full story. 

So, if you live in the greater Twin Cities metropolitan area, you will have been forced to sit through this ad more times than you can count. 

Continuing with the theme that Al Franken is a big, fat, stupid, idiot, unsuited in temperament to become a United States Senator, I did a little research today.  A while back, Dearest Jonathan directed me toward Tom Shales and James Davis' excellent Live From New York: An Uncensored History of Saturday Night Live, As Told By Its Stars, Writers and Guests,   Jonathan said there were some excellent "Coked Up Al" stories in there, so, of course, I went and looked it up. 

On drugs...

Dick Ebersol:  My office was on the fourth floor.  The writers basically never got there before one o'clock in the afternoon---ever.  We had so little space.{...} Al {Franken} and Tom {Davis} had bought their first-ever cocaine, and they had it all out on the desk.  First time they were ever able to buy any.  As apprentice writers, their pay was, I think, $325 a week.  So they have the cocaine on the desk, they're like literally staring at it.  I'm off in the distance.  I'm in a tough place because I'm supposedly the executive, but I decided it wasn't my job to play policeman.

Suddenly this figure comes roaring through the room.  Unbeknownst to us at the time, he had a straw in his hand.  He gets to the table, and he has half of that stuff up his nose by the time they knew who it was: Belushi.  They didn't know whether to be thrilled that Belushi had just done this to their coke or be absolutely decimated, because that represented about half the money they had in the world at that time. {...}

Of course, when this book was published in 2003, Al already had his political aspirations in mind...

Al Franken: Yes, there were some people on the show doing coke.  I don't like to get into this.  John died of it.  He had a problem, he got addicted.  We didn't know about that, we didn't know at the time.  When I say "we" I mean Americans didn't know what cocaine did, and about addiction and that kind of thing.

But then Shales must have slipped him a scotch, because, as it turns out, Al decided there was more to say on the subject...

Al Franken:  There was not as much cocaine as you would think on the premises.  Yeah, a number of people got in trouble.  But cocaine was used mainly just to stay up.  There was a very undisicplined was of writing the show, which was staying up all night on Tuesday.  We didn't have the kind of hours that normal people have.  And so there was a lot of waiting until Tuesday night, and then going all night, and at two or three or four in the morning, doing some coke to stay up, as opposed to doing a whole bunch, and doing nitrous oxide, and laughing at stuff.

People used to ask me about this and I'd always say, "No, there was no coke.  It's impossible to do the kind of show we were doing and do drugs."  And that was just a funny le that I liked to tell.  Kind of the opposite was true, unfortunately, for some people, it was impossibel to do the show without the drugs.  Comedians and comdey writers and people in show business in general aren't the most disciplined people, so the idea of putting the writing off until you had to, then staying up all night, was an attractive one.  And then having this drug that kept you awake in an enjoyable way was kind of tempting, too.  But I only did cocaine to stay awake to make sure nobody else did too much cocaine.  That was the only reason I did it.  Heh-heh.

Maybe his next ad should go something like, "Al Franken: The guy you can absolutely trust to make sure if you OD, he'll dump your  body at the ER door sometime before your heart explodes." 

Such a selfless guy, that Al.  Makes you want to go right out and vote for him, doesn't it? 

But, of course, with Al being a political creature going way back, there are a few tales to tell concerning poltical figures of the mid-70's...

Tom Davis: One day Henry Kissinger calls up, and the call is picked up at an NBC page's desk.  And the page goes, "Henry Kissinger's on the phone.  He wants tickets for his son."  And Al grabs the phone and yells into it, "You know, if it hadn't been for the Christmas bombing in Cambodia, you could've had your fucking tickets!'"

I'm sure Henry---"I ordered extra bombing of Hanoi to get the damn North Vietnamese to the table at the Paris Peace Accords"---Kissinger felt rightly chastised by not receiving SNL tickets. 

And then we have what I'm sure Al calls, "The Ambush of Spiro Agnew"

Al Franken:  I had heard Spiro Agnew was going to be on Tom Snyder's show, so I just wanted to meet him and harass him a little bit.  I brought a tape recorder and went down to their studios on six.  Agnew was in the makeup room, so I sat down in the next makeup chair as he was getting made up and I said something like, "You called student protesters bums, and aren't you the bum?---I think that's what I said---"because you took money?"  And he just said, "I never called them bums.  That was Nixon."  It was like beneath his dignity to address this kid with long hair and to spend too much time on it.

I thought I'd pressed the button to start the tape recorder, but I didn't.  I'd had it on and turned it off or something.  So I didn't get it on tape.  And then I also felt stupid because I checked it out and I was wrong: Nixon had called students bums.  At least I did get to say to Agnew that he was a bum.

And then the producer of the Snyder show called me up and said, "Don't do that.  If there's somebody on our show that you hate, don't come down here and harass them.  That's not good for our show."

I'll let Lorne Michaels comment on this one...

Lorne Michaels:  When Al went down to the fucking sixth floor to berate Spiro Agnew, Chevy and O'Donoghue and I were like, "Al, what the fuck are you doing?"  Al took that "nattering nabob" speech personally.  He was probably twenty-three when the show started, I was thirty.  It has always seemed to me that people who make the most noise about artistic integrity were the first people to buy a Mercedes, and the more people railed about things, when you examine their lives twenty-five years later----well, you know. 

{my emphasis}

Yes, Lorne, sadly, we here in Minnesota know.  And we will keep on knowing until Coked Up Al loses to Norm Coleman in November.