Senator Al Franken!

/in /by

al_franken_official_senate_portrait.jpg

Makes me smile:

Five years after he put his money behind the Swift Boat ads that helped tank John Kerry’s presidential campaign, Senate Democrats gave T. Boone Pickens a warm welcome at their weekly policy lunch Thursday. 

Or at least most of them did. 

Kerry skipped the regularly scheduled lunch; his staff said the Massachusetts Democrat “was unable to attend because he had a long scheduled lunch with his interns and pages.” 

Sen. Al Franken managed to make time for the lunch — but then let Pickens have it afterward. 

According to a source, the wealthy oil and gas magnate and author of “The First Billion Is the Hardest” stepped up to introduce himself to Franken in a room just off the Senate Floor after the lunch ended

Franken, who was seated talking to someone else, did not stand when Pickens said hello. Instead, Franken began to berate him about the billionaire’s financing of the Swift Boat ads in 2004.

I’m happy with people who want to partner with Pickens. Fine.

But don’t do it at a party caucus lunch.

Don’t make your former Presidential candidate schedule lunches with his interns and pages!!

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    • maryyooch says:

      “Go AL! I’m so sick of the ass-licking democrats.”

      Me too. Al finally gets to be the Senator he was elected to be. Honest, straight, forward, incorruptible and he has a set of balls that all of Congress needs to have!
      o, Al, Go!!

      (I even named one of my precious dogs after him, Franken, before he even ran for Congress).

  5. Teddy Partridge says:

    Besides their obvious Drudge-bait slant, Politico can’t even use the English language correctly. This is not an example of a FEUD, which they called it in their headline. This is an example of Franken LASHING OUT, or DISSING, or BERATING. But a FEUD, by its nature, must be proven by multiple examples over time. They are idiots at Politico.

    And who set this up, an obvious insult to Kerry? Do people not remember? Or has Kerry pissed off someone in the luncheon-caucus-scheduling office?

    Good for Franken. But it is fascinating that these little leaks come Politico’s way only about the libs; you never hear much about the private conversations Grassley has when he steams through the dementia fog. I wonder why not?

  6. cougar says:

    1) Well, I’m not disappointed with Franken, yet, but I think a swift kick to the TBP groin would have been more appropriate.

    2) Kerry continues to disappoint, however. Why can’t he tell the truth, for once?

    3) Someone will have to explain to me the wisdom/justification for Senate “Democrats” having ANYTHING to do with a jerk who funded the swift-boaters, the proto “birthers.” Tell me, was Baucus seen licking the Pickens’s
    BEE-hind?

  7. Blue Texan says:

    “Boone has clearly moved on and is focused on a mission to solve the foreign oil dependency problem that he believes is a national security and economic crisis that America has to confront. Boone’s grateful for the impressive turnout of Democrats at the Democrat Policy Committee yesterday and for the interest they have shown in helping address this problem.”

    Asshole.

    • cinnamonape says:

      One “moves on” by making a very, very public apology and following that up with demonstrable compensation for all the harm one did. Certainly that’s immeasurable in Picken’s case, and he’ll be lucky to be spending time in purgatory waiting for his “good deeds” to balance his sins for the lies he promoted disparaging Sen. Kerry’s honor, during his Presidential campaign run, no less.

    • Mason says:

      Wanna bet against Obama criticizing Al for acting in such a disrespectful and non-bipartisanship way?

      Those would be Obama’s words, not mine.

      • MadDog says:

        I’m guessing that Obama “the politician” won’t mind having an attack dog like Senator Franken biting butts.

        As I said, watch Senator Franken make one hell of a Senatorial name for himself.

    • emptywheel says:

      If I were Al’s staffers, I’d run-don’t-walk to the nearest journalist.

      Because people like you and I would promptly jump for joy and Senator! Al! Franken!

      • Petrocelli says:

        Excellent to hear that Al is going Hammer ‘n’ Tongs already … we should all e-mail/call/drop him a line to thank and encourage him to continue this.

        Senator Al Franken
        320 HART SENATE OFFICE BUILDING
        WASHINGTON DC 20510
        DC Phone: 202-224-5641
        E-mail: [email protected]

  10. valletta says:

    Al can be very polite when necessary but his bullshit threshold, is thankfully, very low. We are in for some great truth-to-power moments. And especially since he had to “earn” it after 6 months of Norm playing dirty. He’s not going to waste his chance.
    And it’s going to shame many of the DINOs. Can’t wait.

  12. prostratedragon says:

    And who set this up, an obvious insult to Kerry?

    Indeed. Since we don’t allow duels anymore, not going strikes me as a good signal for Kerry to have sent not just to Pickens, but more so to whomever.

    But Franken’s response was great, and downright collegial if you ask me. Hope Team Apologia doesm’t get hold of him.

  14. esseff44 says:

    OT – DiFi has a piece on HuffPo on Warrantless Wiretapping. The last sentence is a whopper.

    http://www.huffingtonpost.com/…..48787.html

    Strong intelligence tools are necessary to keep the nation secure and to provide policymakers with information needed to make decisions. But those tools must be transparent to Congress, subject to extensive legal review from within the entire Executive Branch, and fully consistent with the law. That is what is required under our system of checks and balances and, thankfully, the NSA’s surveillance activities meet those requirements today.

  15. MadDog says:

    And more OT – Via the AP (caveat emptor!):

    Fmr. US attys general doubt interrogations probe

    Six former U.S. attorneys general expressed doubts Friday about the wisdom of launching a federal investigation into whether interrogations of terrorism suspects following the 9/11 attacks violated the law.

    Such an investigation wouldn’t fix policies that have been criticized because the new administration already has changed them, said former Attorney General Benjamin Civiletti told a panel discussion at the annual meeting of the American Bar Association in Chicago. Civiletti was the only one of former attorneys general who served in a Democratic administration…

    …Dick Thornburgh, who served under Presidents Ronald Reagan and George H.W. Bush, stressed the urgency in the minds of many Americans about capturing terrorists and heading off a catastrophe involving weapons of mass destruction.

    Thornburgh said anyone who prevented an attack and saved millions of lives would most likely get “a ticker tape parade down Broadway” — even if he used torture, illegal wiretaps and warrantless searches to do it.

    Michael Mukasey, who served under George W. Bush, said he saw no realistic means of prosecuting anyone because of irregularities in the interrogations. And Edwin Meese, attorney general under Reagan, said prosecuting attorneys for writing opinions justifying harsh interrogation methods by CIA personnel would set a bad precedent…

    Repug former Attorneys General against prosecutions for torture. Who would have guessed?

  16. bobschacht says:

    Such an investigation wouldn’t fix policies that have been criticized because the new administration already has changed them, said former Attorney General Benjamin Civiletti told a panel discussion at the annual meeting of the American Bar Association in Chicago.

    News Flash!
    A spokesman for Bonnie and Clyde denounced the Federal Investigation into their bank robberies, stating that B&C had already decided to change their behavior towards banks, so that any further investigations would be pointless.

    Bob in HI

  17. JimWhite says:

    Say it ain’t so Keef: Deal brokered between Jeffrey Immelt and Rupert Murdoch to make Keith Olbermann and Bill O’Reilly stop battling each other? See NYTimes for details.

    h/t Tweet from Glenn Greenwald.

  18. orionATL says:

    a serious weakness of the obama administration is the president’s inexperience and his inclination toward conflict-avoidance.

    but those aren’t the only or the most serious weaknesses.

    the most serious weakness for ANY democratic prez nowadays is the democratic party in the senate – those guys and gals, those “old fart democrats”, who, as a group, have lost all concern for the public interest or lost all will to fight their republican senatorial pals no matter how foolish or destructive to the national interest pal’s policy stands might be.

    the senatorial OFD aren’t just physically old, though many are. they are senators who have been around too long and/or have sold themselves for campaign contributions to special interests like commercial health insurance/care and banking.

    evan bayh isn’t that old, but the schemers like haley barbour and tom daschle have targeted him as a great senator to lay some banking money on. likewise with max baucus and ben nelson.

    trying to play get along go along with these guys is not going to be productive.

    the OFD need to be run out of the senate with well-funded, well-thought-out primary challenges without regard to the concern “what if we lose to a republican”.

    a loss to a republican would be an undesirable but acceptable outcome to get rid of an OFD.

  20. PJEvans says:

    Strong intelligence tools are necessary to keep the nation secure and to provide policymakers with information needed to make decisions. But those tools must be transparent to Congress, subject to extensive legal review from within the entire Executive Branch, and fully consistent with the law. That is what is required under our system of checks and balances and, thankfully, the NSA’s surveillance activities meet those requirements today.

    Bwahahaha!

    She’s such a comedian. Not.
    Senator? Mostly a chair-warmer, these last few years.

    • emptywheel says:

      Yes.

      We’d be better off (shoot me) with Schumer. About 20 Senators owe–to some degree–Schumer their seat. No one owes Franken anything.

      That’s how LBJ was able to command so much discipline–bc he had controlled the purse strings for so many people. Schumer doesn’t control them anymore (except in his role as the Senator from Wall Street). But he is owed, by everyone in the last two cohorts which is–what?–16 Senators?

      • Sara says:

        First off — I’m back. As of today I am the proud owner of a whole new state of the art computer — replacing my ten year old set-up that went totally Blue Screen fizzle on me about three weeks ago. Because of some plans to visit friends at lake cottages, I decided to wait to make computer decisions till this week, after being social for a time. About noon today I hauled home the boxes — new printer, scanner, actually everything except for two speakers. Still have a mass of stuff to install, and properly set up — but being unable to access the net since Senator Franken became Senator Franken means much has been said to the TV and Radio that otherwise would have landed on one or another blog.

        That said — no way Franken should burden himself with any sort of leadership position on anything other than issues — at least until he wins a second term by a slightly larger margin. There is a fascinating story in Richard Wolffe’s book, “Renegade” to the effect that about 20 Democratic Senators went to Obama after the election last fall, and asked that he appoint Hillary to the Cabinet, largely because they did not want her contending to be Majority Leader — and if she didn’t become President or VP, they thought that was her second choice goal. Essentially they wanted her out of the Senate. (yea, I been doing low tech, reading books again.)

        Of our Democratic Senators in their First Term — I see real leadership potential in Whitehouse and Cardin, and perhaps Amy Klobuchar too. Another contender should be Durbin, but I suspect his being from Illinois is a difficulty, given it is also Obama’s state. When you look at a list of previous leaders — LBJ, Mike Mansfield, Robert Byrd, Ted Kennedy George Mitchell, Tom Daschle — and pick out the characteristics that made them successes or failures at the job, you can kinda pick out some of the qualities you find of interest.

  23. melior says:

    Speaking of T. Boone Pickens, it’s important to remember that he is a very serious person and you should invest all your money with him and listen to everything he says.

    After his energy fund lost 98% and his equities fund lost 64% in 2008, Boone Pickens is back for more. Yep, he is raising money for new iterations of essentially the same hedge funds that his hedge fund BP Capital previously ran. Well, we don’t even really need to say ”essentially” because they literally are the same funds just with a ”II” at the end of the name, signaling their second incarnation.

    Gee, how many years of bidness schooling do I need before I can invest people’s money with an awesome rate of return like his minus 98%?

  24. randiego says:

    Franken was the guy I REALLY wanted to win – I gave as much to his campaign as I did to Obama’s.

    I saw him once at a reading/book signing. He was amazingly patient and generous during the signing, doing photos and custom inscriptions until every last person had been taken care of.

    He showed the same class and patience through all of the Coleman/Republican shenanigans. He earned that Senate seat and the people of Minnesota are lucky to have him.

  25. maryyooch says:

    I also should have added to my comment that Senator Franken cares about people…….ALL people. We definitely need more of those kinds of Senators. The blue dogs are the rethugs of yesteryear, the Democrats are just a center coalition an the repukes are just fuckin crazy!