I have no particular reason to think he'd be a good Senator, should he ever choose to run, but Al Franken does have a way with words:
They don't get it. We love America in a different way. You see, they love America the way a four-year-old loves her mommy. Liberals love America like grown-ups. To a four-year-old, everything Mommy does is wonderful and anyone who criticizes Mommy is bad. Grown-up love means actually understanding what you love, taking the good with the bad, and helping your loved one grow. Love takes attention and work and is the best thing in the world.
From Chapter Five of Lies and the Lying Liars Who Tell Them.
(via The Liquid List)
I don’t think you’d like him to run for office. Al Franken is the best thing to happen to the Republican party since Michael Moore. His way with words is akin to Moore’s with film–used to put a pseudo-journalistic gloss on the most juvenile form of argument.
And by the way, if you look into his biography you might suspect (as I do) that the anolgy he gives is not of his own origination.
The Michael Moore reference is a cheap shot. First, though it only matters to a degree, Franken has brains … he went to Harvard and that book itself was done as part of a seminar sort project associated with the college. Second, the book is fact checked, as he notes — he has a bunch of research assistants that back the stuff up. Daily Howler basically gives it a good review. Third, his show also has “real guests” as in experts from the field, and he quite often quotes from such experts.
He at times thinks his argument are less open to debate that they are, which is far from unique in politics (and talk radio), and he makes ideological arguments of this sort now and again. Overall though, he is not just some hack, or even a slanted propagandizing force like Moore.
But, sure, cheap shots can try to equalize the two … and surely anyone even like Moore is worthy of immediate dismissal! The analogy is not original, but the professor didn’t congratulate him on the analogy itself, but also how it was expressed.