Franken "Fran"

I don't usually weigh in on moral debates, but the Franken disclosure disgusts me because I've followed him my whole life as a young fan of SNL. But more importantly listened to him on Air America when that was all the rage in 2004 right before W.'s reelection, that was a death knell for America. Franken was never a savior, but he wasn't the worst guy, I guess. Him and Rachel Maddow were similar in that they'd pick topics that were easy and, like civil rights, and that everyone could agree on. For example, I don't think Franken once tackled "free trade" and if he did it wasn't the thrust of the show, that had more to do with his participation in the U.S.O., where I guess he groped this girl, and stuck his tongue down her throat. The nauseating part of the "Franken" show was how he was essentially using Air America as a way to prop his political career, and his yet unannounced run for the Senate, though the whole show felt like a run for public office, making it one of the more miluquetoast. He'd do comedy bits, which were fine, but he'd also play up a patriotic side that had to do with his marriage to Fran, his high school sweetheart from Minnesota, and whose name rang up everything good about the bread basket of America. "Fran." He'd also talk about his kids a lot, and how his daughter wanted to be a schoolteacher, but the whole point of these exposes was to show himself as a legitimate God fearing family man, who'd really chosen the straight and narrow, even though he was a funny guy. Of course, this belied his decade long (?) stint on SNL that belied this, but that aside Franken sounded fake, and made listening to him unbearable. Norm Ornstein was the best thing about the Franken show, but he was a seasoned observer of Congress, with an objective/middle of the road bend, that brought the show into focus.

I never believed Franken's "Fran" schtick. It always felt contrived to me. I never saw a photo of Fran, and furthermore Franken was one of the biggest megalomaniacs of all time, and nothing in him reeked of a family man, though I'm sure he is, but clearly not the type he was trying to portray. He always seemed like a guy running for office, and from a documentary I saw about Air America he wasn't liked much by his fellow hosts who made it clear the network was a Franken power grab. As for his sex offense, it's disgusting and acting like he didn't know a woman didn't want his tongue down her throat is insane. I can understand if he put his arm around her and she moved away, but that's a far step from the behavior I've heard described, and the subsequent photo of him cupping her breasts. The whole thing sounds like a power grab, and he is an ambitious man, unlike his now deceased partner Tom Davis who died of alcoholism, and who I had to hear Franken go on a pious speech against on "Fresh Air" no doubt to vaunt his political career. Just watch, it'll come out he's a souse too, but that's the way the liberal elite rolls.