Al Franken: Giant of the Senate by Al Franken

[gilda_elise]

From the #1 bestselling author - the story of an award-winning comedian who decided to run for office and then discovered why award-winning comedians tend not to do that.

This is a book about an unlikely campaign that had an even more improbable ending: the closest outcome in history and an unprecedented eight-month recount saga, which is pretty funny in retrospect.

I’ve liked Al Franken since SNL and Stuart Saves His Family, but never more so then after reading this book. His humor and wit shine through, but so does his desire to do good for the people of his state. He gives praise to his fellow Democrats, while gently chastising his detractors on the other side of the aisle. And he actually taught me something about how a bill really gets through Congress (forget all about that silly video that purports to.)

He could do that because he had actually taken the time to learn about public policy, not jumping in totally ignorant as so many have. And he was a good enough Senator for the people of Minnesota to send him back a second time by a wide margin.

Now on to the elephant in the room. I did some research into the accusations against him. Most don’t hold water. He left his hand on your breast for ten seconds? What, were you in a coma? Another claimed that he had “pinched the skin around her waist a couple of times.” Give me a break. Perhaps if one of these women had turned around and slapped him, or yelled something to the affect like “Keep your hands to yourself, a**hole,” it would have all ended there. In any event, I found nothing that would have warranted destroying a man’s career. Certainly not before allowing the vetting he was asking for.

So Gillibrand, Brown, Harris, Stabenow, Booker, Warren, and, yes, even Sanders, and the other twenty-five Democratic senators who voted to oust him (amazing how many of them are running for the presidential nomination,) you can all rot.







Links are to more information regarding each book or author, not to the review.


1. The Outsider
2. War on Peace: The End of Diplomacy and the Decline of American Influence
3. Lost Dogs and Lonely Hearts
4. The Color of Law: A Forgotten History of How Our Government Segregated America
5. Frozen in Time: The Fate of the Franklin Expedition
6. From Baghdad to America: Life after War for a Marine and His Rescued Dog (Lava #2)
7. The Gap Into Vision: Forbidden Knowledge (Gap #2)
8. The Family That Couldn't Sleep: A Medical Mystery
9. First King of Shannara (Original Shannara Trilogy 0)
10. Legends of the Fall
11. Moon of the Crusted Snow
12. Mio, My Son
13. Circe
14. Al Franken: Giant of the Senate



BOOK BINGO

13. Free Space - Al Franken: Giant of the Senate by Al Franken





1. Fantasy, Scifi, Paranormal - The Outsider by Stephen King
2. Mystery/Crime/True Crime - The Family That Couldn't Sleep: A Medical Mystery by D.T. Max
5. Diverse Reads - Moon of the Crusted Snow by Waubgeshig Rice
6. Children's or YA - Mio, My Son by Astrid Lindgren
7. Biography/Autobiography Non fiction - From Baghdad to America by Jay Kopelman
8. Historical (fiction or nonfiction) - Frozen in Time: The Fate of the Franklin Expedition by Owen Beattie, John Geiger
9. Set in Your State/Country or Written by a Local Author - Legends of the Fall by Jim Harrison
10. Title Starts with the First Letter of Your Name - The Gap Into Vision: Forbidden Knowledge (Gap #2) by Stephen R. Donaldson
11. Female Author - Lost Dogs and Lonely Hearts by Lucy Dillon
12. One Word Title - Circe by Madeline Miller
13. Free Space - Al Franken: Giant of the Senate by Al Franken
15. Title is at Least Six Words Long - War on Peace: The End of Diplomacy and the Decline of American Influence by Ronan Farrow
20. A New-to-You Author - The Color of Law: A Forgotten History of How Our Government Segregated America by Richard Rothstein
22. A Book that is Part of a Series (4+ books) - First King of Shannara (Original Shannara Trilogy 0) by Terry Brooks

Comments

[leethet.livejournal.com]

But for all the women who didn't speak, who didn't shout, who didn't fight back ... what? You surely don't believe they're all liars or undeserving of sympathy?

I fought back. Some people can't, physically. Some can't emotionally. Many are totally surprised and don't react, in the moment, the way history will later say they should have (I've been there too - most people have). That doesn't mean they weren't victims of assault.

Fighting off a man intent on assaulting you is physically impossible for most women. I'm not going to blame women for recognizing that. Maybe only another woman, or a pretty man in prison, would understand the feeling of threat when someone a lot bigger than you corners you somewhere alone far from help. I think a lot of men don't get that. "Why didn't you fight back?" "Because he punched me once and broke my jaw and I went down like a load of bricks."

Just sayin'. To be fair many women express the position you seem to be expressing - that you only have a right to talk about it, to call it assault, if you fought back in the moment. I just can't see that.

[gilda-elise.livejournal.com]

I tend to think that the women are telling the truth. That's not what I have a problem with. My problem is one of degree. Is what happened worth destroying a man's life? If he assaulted you, whether just physically or sexually, yeah, go for it. And, yeah, especially if you're alone with the guy, the chances of you fighting him off are pretty slim. But in this particular instance, that wasn't the case.

I had an episode with the guy who was getting too forceful. I was able to get him to stop by asking him if this was the only way to get a women to sleep with him, by forcing them. Years later that same guy worked with my husband. By this time the guy was married and had a couple of kids. I never said anything about what happened to him or my husband. What would have been the point? He had obviously changed, and I wasn't sure how my husband would have responded. Not well, I don't think. For me, it wasn't worth the trouble it probably would have caused. I just think that women need to think about just what it is they're expecting out of their proclamation. Do you want to destroy his career? Did he damage you that much? And what does the woman think is actually going to happen?

[leethet.livejournal.com]

**Did he damage you that much?**

Well, only the woman knows, right? And I think they speak, sometimes, because they've held a painful truth inside themselves for so long it's a relief to say "That guy? He's an A hole. He assaulted me. Don't lionize him." It's justice.

[gilda-elise.livejournal.com]

I suppose. But it still astonishes me that someone kissing you on the back of the head could damage a woman, that it would be a painful truth rather than just a weird occurrence. I guess we're all just very different.

[leethet.livejournal.com]

Well, we are, and while that is a wonder and a good thing, it does make finding common ground very hard sometimes. We all assume (I think) that we're coming from a good and decent place, so when someone disagrees, the natural tendency is to think they're coming from a bad (and indecent!) place. That's generally not actually true. Most humans want, broadly, the same things, and think the same things are good.