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]

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.