The Star Tribune ran a clarification on the story:
A story on Page B1 Monday explored U.S. Senate candidate Al Franken’s changing views on the Iraq war, including statements in one of his books criticized by opposing candidate Mike Ciresi. Franken said at a Sept. 30 debate, and his staff says now, that statements in the book about Franken’s fear over weapons of mass destruction were satirical, not serious.
The Star Tribune did the right thing.
It must be nice to be able to claim any statement you have ever made is satire. Just what we need in a politician, a person who can say he was joking any time one of his statements becomes unpopular. Franken makes Coleman look trustworthy which is why he is the one Democrat that could possibly lose the election.
Anyone with half a clue would know that the statement WAS satire.
Franken can’t claim that any statement is satire just by claiming it.
That chapter, in particular, was satire. He’s not claiming anything, just stating a fact.
Also, it wasn’t apparent that statement was satire just from reading it straight especially if you are unfamiliar with Franken or his work. That’s what made Ciresi pulling it out during the debate so shocking: whoever prepared that statement knew it was satire since they had the appropriate context - they then removed the context to use it against Franken.
I have read Franken’s work and reread the section in question. His writing and comments are a mix of satire and straight writing and the idea that a whole paragraph or even sentence either either completely satire or not is ridiculous. Just because the line about his wife’s fear of the garbage truck was satire does not mean his excuse about being for the war in part out of fear was.
More importantly there was no valid and thoughtful reason to be for the invasion of Iraq and the only people that supported it did so out of fear or political expediency. So what is Franken’s excuse if not fear?
KH -
“So what is Franken’s excuse if not fear?”
OMG, read my post.
Franken says he believed the President and Colin Powell, which was a mistake but is totally different than acting out of fear.
Zach:
Contrary to your false headline, the Star Tribune did not issue a correction, they issued a clarification.
I see that you wrote clarification in the body of your post, but your headline is wrong.
On your earlier post on Franken and the war, I predicted they may issue a clarification to allow Franken’s campaign to claim satire.
“I could see a clarification to allow Franken’s side to say it was satire (weak excuse) but a correction? That seems a bit much.”
A clarification is different than a correction.
I suppose gullibility is a valid reason, though I tend to be pretty suspect of some of the people claiming it. I don’t believe half the Dems who do — they were just trying to save their political lives.
Truly, though, I don’t understand anyone who was beating the drums for Iraq out of fear. Didn’t we already have someone to be afraid of? I never will understand how the neocons were able to manipulate the public so easily when there was already an actual enemy who had masterminded an attack on us. And no one seemed concerned that we were diverting resources from that fight. I just don’t get it. And I think it’s a sign of failure on the Dems that they weren’t able to make this an issue, and instead just stepped into line. I mean, hell, I’m a knee-jerk liberal, and *I* was scared.
It has been stated over and over that even if you believed the president and Colin Powell there was no good reason to vote for the use of force resolution. Those senators and congress-people that voted yes abdicated their constitutional and moral duties. Saying that you believed the president is not an excuse, it is a smoke screen. I and many other believed the president as well but still understood that even if the claims about WMDs were true a preemptive invasion was the wrong, period. Wellstone and a few other elected officials understood this as well and made the right vote even though it was a political risk. Franken had nothing to lose by being against the war and still supported it.
I don’t doubt that Franken believed the president (another sign of his incompetence if you ask me) but even so why other than fear would you support a preemptive invasion? Plus wouldn’t supporting an invasion of Iraq because you believe they have WMDs still be acting out of fear?
Noah, maybe the Ciresi staffer who read the book didn’t get Franken’s sense of humor. I’ll admit that as someone who has read and laughed at Franken’s books I was a little confused. I initially thought Franken was kidding about supporting the war. My thinking was, how could a smart guy like Franken be so stupid. Once I figured out that he really was pro-war, it wasn’t clear where the satire started. Which of course is the problem with Franken as a candidate. If you think Ciresi was taking Franken out of context, wait until the Republicans get started.
By the way, you Franken supporters are all shameless dicks,* butt boys**, and big fat idiots.*** I hate you f*cking motherf*ckers.****
* You can’t be offended by this because its satire.
** More satire, well understood by Minnesotans.
*** More clever satire.
**** Ha. Ha. Ha. Just kidding.
My god is Al Franken a massive tool. (not satire)
Um, yeah, that’s not a correction. That’s a newspaper letting a candidate explain himself after saying something stupid. Kind of like when Mike Huckabee didn’t raise his hand as believing in evolution at the Republican debate and then got a chance to “make a clarification.”
So its satire that he supported the war because of fear but he did trust Bush despite the mounting evidence, even then, that Bush was often lying, or willfully blind?
The ‘satire’ defense seems to be a bit of a crutch. Its interesting - Franken’s ‘satire’ often seem to dodge between paragraphs/scenes (depending on media form) of him being the ‘straight man’, and the humor (with more ad hominem obscenity than I like, but thats me). It seems kind of like he wants to have the best of both worlds and be both a serious pundit and a comedian. Similarly, Franken will claim credit, and be praised by supporters, for ‘telling it like it is’ or ‘sticking it to the man’. But whenever he runs into hard opposition, suddenly its all satire, not to be taken seriously.
If he gets the nomination(or even before) I can see this biting him in the butt. ‘Now Al, is all this hard talk about an income tax on wealthy Americans to pay for healthcare serious? Or will it be satire if the polls show the public doesn’t like it?’ Maybe thats his nomination strategy! Feint left, get the DFL nomination - and as soon as he has to sell himself to the general public, why, the positions that the moderate suburban voter might find extreme become satire!
Lets hope it bites him in the butt before he gets the nomination. We really need to take out Norm Coleman, and its not going to happen with Franken.
Brodkorby,
“Contrary to your false headline, the Star Tribune did not issue a correction, they issued a clarification.”
Your party is so nuanced! How much did you get paid for that suttle wordsmithing?
Impressive.
You don’t need to be a Republican shill to see the difference.
A correction would be in order if the Star Tribune screwed up.
A clarification (at least in this case) is printing Franken’s justification for making an ass of himself.
Satire-bereft Neo-con REPUBLICANS:
CLUELESS IN MINNESOTA!??
once again — assume that all of Minnesota is like they are, or pretend to be!!!
=========================
Isn’t it interesting that all of the Republican candidates
are trying to use humor & “out funny” each other on the podium.
Some going on The Daily Show!
Even people like Sister Lynn Cheney & Tony Snow acknowledge the attraction, if not always the wit & humor of programs like the Daily Show & Colbert to hawk their wares…
when in Minnesota, the scam the GOP shills are prepared to sell, is that being a comedian should disqualify Al Franken from public office!
How inane & disconnected a right wing in the state!
A clarification is different than a correction.
Oh, but wait - there was other stuff embedded in that post, which was spin & conjecture on the writer’s part!
How quaint & atypical!!!?
Ooooooooops!
Have to add one more, upon seeing the link to the paper!
Looking at the section in which the “clarification” appears:
its headed:
CORRECTIONS & CLARIFICATIONS!!!!
If they mangled someone’s words that’s a clarification.
If they screwed up in the conclusion presented, based upon a misrepresentation - that would be a CORRECTION,
not a clarification.
Brodkorb can’t win for losing.
The Star Tribune did not mangle or screw up anything - the quote was 100 percent accurate. They allowed Franken to explain that his comment was satire. Its not that hard to understand.
And even if the Star Tribune did screw up by failing to realize it was satire, that is indicative of the problem with Franken’s candidacy. The Republicans are going to spend a lot of time and money taking Franken’s “satirical” comments out of context, and Franken is going to be spending most of his time explaining that his comments were satire. And its going to come across as pretty lame, especially when Franken is explaining why he calls his political opponents “butt boys” and “shameless dicks.”
You need to stop worrying about Brodkorb. Brodkorb is just having fun pimping the Democrats on their terrible candidate. You need to worry about the fact that the Democrats are well on their way to nominating a candidate who has no chance at all of beating Norm Coleman.
I assume that Franken was not in favor of invading Iraq before 9-11. He became in favor of the invasion at some point. If he is being honest when he says he believed the president in the lead up to the war all that needs to be done is to ask a couple follow up questions. Why did he believe the president, and then why did he feel a preemptive invasion was justified ? The truth is that the most likely answer to the first and the only answer to the second question is fear. Why else would a long time Liberal Democrat who was making a living being critical of Republicans suddenly take what Bush was saying at face value? An unlikely but possible answer would be something like “Respect for the office” which seems like a long shot given Franken’s history. I’d let him have it since I don’t have any concrete evidence that it is a lie. The second question though is different. Unlike Hillary and other Democrats who supported the war out of political expediency Franken had no such rationale. There is simply no other reason but fear to support a preemptive invasion of Iraq whether you believed the president or not.
That being said no matter what Franken’s intent was in writing the statement, satire or not, is immaterial. It is immaterial because the statement was true. He an everyone who supported the war (that did not support an imperialist foreign policy anyway) did so for two possible reasons. It was popular at the time and they needed to be re-elected or because they were afraid that Saddam might have WMDs.
To all those people that continue to defend the indefensible I ask why? Why use smoke screens to hide the fact that your candidate made a decision based on ignorance and fear rather than find a better candidate? Or at least have the courage to be honest about why the decision was made. Are you all so tied into the system that you are willing to become part of the problem without any fight whatsoever?
That you think Norm Coleman is a runaway winner because of Al Franken as candidate is silly, Dan!
Normy is a smarmy yes-man whenever it counts & a lt of Minnesotans recognize that fact!
What alternative for the Dems is better?
Are you going to tell me that Cerisi’s problem is Al Franken?
If Cerisi is that strong & has name recognition, then Franken’s shouldn’t matter!
That’s telling me you think Minnesotans are TOO STUPID to know satire!
…because the newspaper columnists didn’t do their jobs & even understand what they were writing!
It’s not that I think Minnesotans are too stupid to know satire. Its that Al Franken thinks Minnesotans are stupid enough to fall for his satire excuse every time he gets called on one of the stupid things he had said in the past.
I think any of the alternatives is better than Franken. Unfortunately, none of them is as exciting as Franken, and none of them has raised millions of dollars in out-of-state money.
I asked former Star Tribune reporter Eric Black about the Star Tribune reporting on this on his blog:
“On some of the local blogs, there has been a call for an apology from the Star Tribune not because Lopez misquoted Franken, but because she failed to recognize that he was being satirical. If the reporter can’t tell that someone was kidding, does he/she have to ask? Do you think that an apology is in order in this case?”
His response was:
“Thanks Dan. The Strib did publish a “clarification” this morning in which it acknowledges the Franken claim that the material quote was intended satirically. (It’s on page 2A.) Since you ask my opinion of the matter, here it is:
This topic is awkward for Franken because he is unwilling to give a candid, coherent explanation for his evolving Iraq position. Pat Lopez’ story was the latest evidence of that problem and Team Franken didn’t like it. By complaining about one quote on the arguable basis that it amounted to treating a humorous statement as serious, they (and the bloggers who picked up the complaint from them) hope to change the conversation from the other undisputed facts of the story. But that’s all just my surmise.”
http://www.ericblackink.com/2007/10/22/al-franken-half-answers-the-questions-about-iraq/#more-143
See, this isn’t about bad reporting. This is about Franken ducking tough questions and blaming the messenger.
Stephen Colbert is running the way Franken should be running, i.e. running to lampoon the process….wait maybe he is doing that! Seriously, can’t you see Al suddenly saying this was all a joke?!?
I think it is telling that nobody is able to put together a coherent and rational defense for either Franken’s or Hillary’s initial support of the war. Keeping in mind that believing the president is not a rational defense, only political buck passing. The fact that the Republicans were almost unanimous in their support does not exonerate Democrats that played a supportive role. The fact that some of these Democrats are leading the races for next years election supports the idea that Democrats are for the large part more interested in using the war as a political tool than they are about it’s immorality.
Kerosene Hat, I mostly agree with you, but you’ve got to separate Hillary and Franken.
Whatever Hillary says about the war, the real reason she voted for it was the fear of political ramifications. She figured that opposing the war would hurt her presidential chances. It may not be much of an excuse, but its an explanation. A lot of other Democrats did the same thing. That’s why what Wellstone did was so impressive - he was the only senator up for re-election to vote against the war resolution.
Franken was not in office or running for office and did not have the same political calculation to make. Franken was just really really stupid. He ignored what Wellstone had to say about the war, and instead listened to Colin Powell, who was exposed as lying within days of his speech.
Maybe political cowardice is no better than plain old stupidity. My point is just that there is a difference.
Dan,
I agree but think they have parallels in that they are both looking for support from the same people and it is telling who those people are willing to support. Their reasons were different but the results are the same.
There were a lot of people who bought into the Iraq War because they didn’t believe that the white house occupant would stoop so low as to deliberately lie for the sake of his manic agenda.
That somewhere in the midst of that chaos there were SOME adults who kept it all from going out of control.
After all, we used to pride ourselves that Americans had higher standards & ideals, even if it was not entirely true.
There have been worrisome people in the white house before. In that past they haven’t gone completely delusional despite the rhetoric.
Thus its hard to completely fault congressmen & voters who kept that faith there must be SOME particle of truth we weren’t privy to.
Those people who trusted were wrong, but not without some cause for their sense of it. I say that as a person who never trusted Bush & knew he was a whack job from the get-go.
What dreams people are spinning about Franken’s reasons is nothing more than fanciful fabrication on their part.
Mockingbird,
Name the fabrication. Give a reason for Franken’s support. As has been stated, believing the president still provided no reason to invade that wasn’t based on fear. Just because the fear was wide spread and based on decades of bad intelligence and lies doesn’t mean it wasn’t fear.
Why do you continue to defend such bad decision making abilities?
People didn’t believe the white house would deliberately lie to support their manic agenda? That’s really what you’re going with? Gulf of Tonkin, anyone? Iran-Contra affair? Seriously, do you have any knowledge whatsoever of American history?
The funny thing is that you didn’t have to just trust the white house. There was independent evidence at the time that suggested the white house was lying.
Al Franken is an idiot and a liar.
Mockingbird -
The thing is, there were people who did see through the flim-flam, and I’d rather if we could try and make sure our Senator could be the one who sees through the next flim-flam. The DFL primary are were people who set high standards can join forces with people who identify themselves as intrinsically wiser than that large majority of Americans who were fooled. Both of those together will make Franken’s war stance trouble come caucus time.