Franken Makes His Mark

The prospect of Al Franken as a United States Senator worried many, not only because he had no qualifications for the job but because he is temperamentally unsuited to high office. A bitter, angry man, Franken has a long history of confrontations and fisticuffs. He hasn’t yet made much of an impression in Washington, but on Thursday his hostile, hyper-partisan temperament was on display.
The Senate Democrats invited Boone Pickens to address their weekly policy lunch on the subject of energy. With one exception, the Democrats treated their guests politely. The exception, of course, was Franken:

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.
According to a source, the confrontation grew heated.
Said Franken spokeswoman Jess McIntosh: “It was a lively conversation.”

Typical Franken: not just rude, but pointlessly so. And wrong; as we’ve pointed out here and elsewhere, the Vets did a great service by telling Americans what many did not know, and the media were happy to keep quiet: that John Kerry built his political career on the lie that his fellow servicemen in Vietnam were war criminals. Franken would do well to let the matter rest, but perhaps the Vets’ exposure of Kerry’s repeated lies about the Christmas he supposedly spent in Cambodia is seared–seared!–into Franken’s memory.
UPDATE: Dan Blatt notes that the Associated Press isn’t letting Franken’s antics get in the way of their fawning coverage of him.

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