Long before he was a senator, comedian Al Franken made his entry into politics with a couple of bestsellers, Rush Limbaugh Is a Big Fat Idiot and Other Observations and Lies and the Lying Liars Who Tell Them: A Fair and Balanced Look at the Right. Franken found a ready audience for his political insult comedy. Now that he’s a member of the World’s Greatest Deliberative Body, one might think he would tone down the shtick, but if his latest book, Giant of the Senate, is any indication, one would be wrong. For example, if you’re looking for obscene jokes about Ted Cruz, this book is for you.
The book contains at least one feint at humility. Senate “hearings quickly emerged as one of my favorite parts of the job,” Franken writes. “The only problem was that there was a fine line between showing up a jerk and being one myself.” Franken goes on to tell the story of badgering a witness, “a guy named Tevi Troy from the Hudson Institute, a right-wing think tank in Washington, who was there to complain about the Affordable Care Act.” It seems Troy’s crime was citing a statistic that had appeared in the Wall Street Journal opinion pages. Was there a problem with the statistic? Well, no. Franken just doesn’t like the opinions found at the Journal:
After the hearing, Franken praises his health care staffer and tells the rest of his staff that they shouldn’t be afraid to tell him he’s being a jerk. To which The Scrapbook asks, is this story supposed to make Franken look humble and self-effacing? Then why is Franken still so arrogantly dismissive of Tevi Troy as just “a guy” from a “right-wing think tank”? Troy, of course, was deputy secretary of Health and Human Services in the George W. Bush administration, has written books of popular presidential history, and is acknowledged as one of the best health care policy experts of either party in Washington.
Clearly, Hannah Katch is better with short descriptions than her boss is.
