Comedian Al Franken: "George Bush is Going Down"

If the crowd present to hear comedian Al Franken at the Rochester
Convention Center Sunday night has anything to say about it, President
George W. Bush “is going down” to defeat in November.

“After 9/11, this country was the most united I have ever seen in my
life,” Franken said. “The president had the opportunity to lead the
country into a new American Century. He blew it. He hijacked 9/11 for
his own political purposes and that’s why he is going down.”

Close to a thousand people cheered and clapped enthusiastically at
those words, and the audience gave him a standing ovation when he
concluded.

Franken was speaking at a fundraiser for Jewish Family Services in
Rochester. The organization itself takes no position with respect to
political candidates, but Franken’s talk was punctuated throughout
with assenting murmurs and applause as he sharply criticized and poked
fun at President Bush and his cabinet, particularly with respect to
their handling of the Iraq war and occupation.

Franken made no apologies for his riotously partisan position.
“Tonight I will talk politics, he began. “I’ve made no secret about
the fact that I am a Democrat.” The crowd applauded loudly, as people
clearly wanted him to do what he does best -- use his acerbic wit to
excoriate the Bush administration for what he sees as its profound
failures.

“It’s time to get rid of this incredibly radical conservative
government we have,” Franken said, adding, “when Bush said in his
campaign that he was against nation-building, I didn’t realize that he
meant only our nation.” Franken pointed out that between the two Bush
administrations, not a single net new job had been created. If you
took the two Bush administrations together and had them run the
country from its inception, he said, “today not one American would
have ever worked. We would be hunter-gatherers.”

In spite of its record on jobs, the Bush administration has bragged
about what it has done for the economy, he said. In its report on the
economy in February, the administration actually bragged about how
many jobs have been created in other countries through outsourcing.

Franken also poked fun at Bush’s support for a constitutional
amendment to ban gay marriage. Using his “serious ad voice,” he
proposed an ad to make the point that while Bush is against gay
marriage, he has “nothing to say about terrorists getting married.
Right now terrorist couples are plotting to sanctify their love in
holy matrimony and then blow up the Holland Tunnel.” Franken exhorted
the audience to call George W. Bush now and criticize him for being
“weak on terrorist marriage, because unlike gays, terrorists can
breed.” With his superb comic timing, Franken waited a beat, and then
said “This message is brought to you by the Coalition to Distract You
from Real Issues.”

Franken reserved his most biting criticism for Bush’s handling of the
Iraq war and occupation.

At first he was ambivalent , he said. Colin Powell’s assertion before
the United Nations that Saddam Hussein was a clear and imminent threat
to the United States and other countries because of his possession of
“Weapons of Mass Destruction” was very convincing. In particular,
Franken brought up Powell’s insistence that photographs of aluminum
tubing with “anodized coating” could mean only one thing, and that is
that Hussein had or was very close to possessing nuclear weapons. That
anodized coating would be present on those tubes for only one purpose,
Powell said, and that is to be used as a centrifuge for creating
weapons grade plutonium.

Franken said he trusted Powell more than anyone else in the Bush
administration, and took to heart Condoleezza Rice’s assertion that
“We don’t want the smoking gun to be a mushroom cloud.”

Five months later, Franken said, a nuclear specialist at the Oak Ridge
nuclear laboratories told reporters from the Washington Post
not only that the tubes were the wrong size -- in order to adapt them
for creating weapons grade plutonium, the first thing they would have
to do would be to “mill off all the anodized coating.”

“We were lied to,” Franken said. The audience went completely silent
as Franken paused before going into his next riff.

“President Clinton lied about his sex life,” he said. As a result,
married couples today discuss exactly what adultery means. “My wife
has told me that oral sex is adultery. Maybe
that’s why we’ve had none since we were married.”

“The so-called liberal press covered the Monica Lewinsky story for a
year an a half. A few did not,” he said. For instance: “Sailing
Magazine. American Grocer Monthly. Jugs, and Big Butt.”

“It is one thing to lie about your sex life and another to lie about
why you are sending young men and women into harm’s way,” he added, to
thundering applause.

The question that must be asked, Franken said, is “What did the
president know and if not why didn’t he know it?” And if he did not
understand, did he ask to have the intelligence briefings explained to
him? Did he know he didn’t understand? “This question must be asked
repeatedly and in an accusatory tone.”

Franken is no slouch when it comes to supporting American troops
overseas. He visited Iraq during a USO tour a few months ago. He also
visited Kosovo and Bosnia three times each. Despite his sharp
criticism of the Bush administration at home, he said he kept his
performance low-key and “Bob Hope-y” while in Iraq. Most of the troops
are the same age as his own children. He said there is no way he would
have told them, “Your president lied to you, and you are dying for no
reason.”

Nonetheless, Franken clearly believes that to be the case.

Franken fans and critics will be able to hear him live weekdays on the
radio beginning March 31 from noon to 3 p.m. on the new Air America
Network, to be broadcast in New York, Chicago, Los Angeles, and San
Francisco. The program will also be available on the href=http://airamericaradio.com>internet..