Franken Promotes Book

With remarks like “Bill O’Reilly is a big, lying jerk,” liberal radio personality Al Franken ’73 gave a Harvard Square audience a taste of his newest jab at the right last night.

Speaking to a group of about 350 attendees at the Charles Hotel, Franken promoted his newest book “The Truth (With Jokes).” While still filled with his traditional political humor, the book is more serious than his previous publications, which at times was reflected in Franken’s speech.

Reading aloud from a chapter with a passage about his father’s death, Franken choked up and needed a few moments to regain composure. But he was able to laugh it off. “I cry at a good McDonald’s commercial,” he said.

The serious tone was also reflected when Franken spoke about the impact of religion on American culture. He stressed that the founding fathers like Thomas Jefferson and James Madison were deists who saw morality all around them without the emphasis on Christianity.

“Then again, Jefferson had sex with a slave,” he deadpanned.

Aside from his serious reading, there were still plenty of jabs at right-wing pundits like O’Reilly and Rush Limbaugh. Franken remarked that his “dream” was that his film about alcoholism “Stuart Saves the Day” was screened for Limbaugh when he went to rehab.

Franken also made pointed remarks against President Bush and the rest of his administration.

“We’ve got to get rid of these guys,” Franken said. He said he even hopes that the mid-term 2006 elections will be a showcase for “subpoena power,” with voters punishing the Republicans for current scandals involving Tom DeLay and I. Lewis “Scooter” Libby.

Referring to September 11 as Bush’s “little black dress”—since according to Franken, it works for almost any occasion—he called on liberals to pursue prosecutions for war profiteering against companies like Halliburton.

He added that liberals had cornered the market on moral issues like education and poverty, but the Republican Party had hijacked the message.

When asked if he would run for public office, Franken said he was concentrating on his radio show for the time being. Production for his show on the Air America network will be relocating to Minnesota, his home state, where it will be Franken’s “main focus.”

The crowd was overwhelmingly responsive to Franken and broke into spontaneous applause frequently. Franken interacted with the crowd and seemed at ease with the left-leaning audience.

Even though he was only vaguely familiar with Franken’s previous work, Sean P. Mascali ’08 said that he respected Franken’s candor.

“I’m not a huge fan but I was surprised at how personable he was and I respected how he un-politicized politics and brought it to a personal level,” Mascali said.