Al Franken and Lawrence O'Donnell on the swiftie-smear

[ginnyinWI]

Anyone listen to the show today? He was talking to Lawrence O'Donnell about the time he went ballistic on MSNBC talking to O'Neill. Franken mentioned that he goes into how JK earned his medals in some detail in his new book, and why O'Neill is scum. Now I want to read that book!

I really like O'Donnell. Good things to say about the CIA leak scandal too, and how we should have had this info a year ago, before the election. If only!

[WildEyedLiberal]

1. I thought Franken's book was depressing

I read part of it and had to return it. It's not an irreverent laugh-fest like "Lies," and the humor is much more pissed off and dark. The entire first half of the book is about the election, and even though I know he is basically supporting Kerry by showing how Bush had to lie and smear to win, the wounds are still too fresh - and as much as I love Al, I just can't handle ANY snark about Kerry, even relatively good-natured snark. Too much exposure to lefty freepers, I guess.

I'm sure others here will love it - I mean, it is AL Franken, and he's great. But even a year later it's still all too raw for me. And man, I love to joke and snark, and generally get offended by nothing, but I am downright humorless when it comes to poking fun at John.

[TayTay]

2. Yeah, I didn't like that statement that came out from AL

He was talking about if Kerry should run again, and Al thought about Kerry and his run and about Teresa and then wondered how to answer. He decided it depended on how many books JK would buy. (In other words.....)

[WildEyedLiberal]

5. Yeah he snarked about Kerry's 08 chances

Unfortunately Al seems like the kind who would end up supporting Hillary or something. I just wasn't really in the mood to read that, especially since "Lies" was pretty good to Kerry (that hysterical Operation Chickenhawk story).

[jillan]

3. I have become a fan of O'Donnell's as well.

I am beginning to see him more and more on msm.

About Franken - no desire to read the book.
Unless I develop insomnia.

[whometense]

4. I love O'Donnell.

I started liking him from the McLaughlin Group, but when he went berserk on O'Neill I became a fan for life. I like his outspokenness, his loyalty, and his black Irish bitter sense of humor.

I only heard the last part of his bit on Franken today. Did he say anything negative about JK? I don't think I've ever heard him say a bad word about him to date.

Franken's another matter. I have no desire to hear what he has to say about the election.

[WildEyedLiberal]

6. Am I missing something about Al Franken?

I was disappointed with his book, but I don't listen to AAR at all. Was he negative about Kerry after the election or something?

[TayTay]

7. Well, he won't listen on election fraud

And I find him snarky on Kerry. (And I have a fairly high tolerance for snark.) I think he's a Clinton person, myself. He can be funny, but I wish AAR would give him another on-air partner. Rachael Maddow would be nice.

[jillan]

8. Rachel Maddow - I suggested that too in another thread.

I see Franken as repub-lite.
I don't go out of my way to listen to him, but when I do listen, I enjoy his show because he always has on great guests. Wish I would've listened today.

He seems to be afraid of controversy, and I was disappointed in him after the election when everyone was exploring fraud, he wouldn't hear of it. Back in those days, I needed to hear fraud. fraud. fraud. fraud. It was the only way I could sleep at nite. Or else I would have just laid there wondering what was wrong with this country, why Kerry didn't win in a landslide.

[WildEyedLiberal]

9. Hmm, that's unfortunate

Yes, one thing that annoyed me about his book is that he snarked about Kerry not fighting back hard enough, yet you can tell (and you know anyway) that he is probably a Hillary supporter.

Hillary, who has bent over backwards to appeal to Bush voters and look "tough and centrist." Puke.

[whometense]

10. I agree totally.

I see him as a Clinton person as well. Rachel Maddow would be a great partner for him - she wouldn't let him get away with the bullshit he loves to spout. He's much more politically conservative than I am. He can be funny, but I listen more for the guests like O'Donnell and Conason and (sigh) Oliphant.

[ginnyinWI]

12. he didn't really mention Kerry

But you can tell he bitterly hates O'Neil. That is very telling. The show was mainly about the swifties and the CIA leak case. Do you know anywhere that he regularly appears? He said he isn't on the MSNBC payroll anymore.

[whometense]

13. I don't really know.

He appears on MSNBC sometimes as a commentator, sometimes on the McLaughlin Group, and he writes for the Huffington Post - again, off and on. He's too little heard from, in my opinion, and you just sort of have to be lucky enough to tune in at the right time.

[Mass]

11. I am not a big fan of Franken.

He has sometimes good guests, like Conason or O'Donnell, but I often think his humor is counterproductive.

I am not sure he is supporting Hillary. He strikes me as somebody without strong convictions when it comes to supporting one Democrat or another. He follows the wind.

During the primary, he did not say he was supporting one person, but it was clear that his comments were following CW. So during the first part of the campaign, he was touting Dean's charisma, then he supported Kerry the best he knew.

May be he would be a lot better with a cohost that was able to support him, but I really prefer Stephanie Miller and I have stopped listening to him except when I am driving.

[CBHagman]

14. O'Donnell puts his anger to good use.

There are times when I think the O'Donnell temper should be regarded as a weapon of mass destruction. He really knows how to obliterate illogical or self-deluding arguments. In addition, he appears to have just enough inside information on both Hollywood and politics to set everybody straight.

[_dynamicdems]

15. I truly wish someone would put the debates between Kerry and

O'Neill from the Dick Cavett show on DVD. I'd love to see the entire debates again. Also the Buckley/Kerry debate.

I think if people watched O'Neill back then and took another look at him today they would realize the man is seriously DISTURBED. He was fanatical in the debates and he's still beating that same dead horse with fanatical obsession today.

The pro-Vietnam War Kerry haters were so ired by his anti-war stance they didn't hesitate in resorting to violence. Kerry's house was egged and his windows were smashed when the Senator lived in Lowell, MA with his young family. In his biography, there is a story about how a brick thrown through the window of his home landed near his daughter's crib. These are not the actions of normal people and I put O'Neill right in this same category of haters. Haters are never sane.

Disagreeing is one thing. Carrying your disagreement to the point of obsession is surely another. O'Neill has a right to disagree with John Kerry. We are a free country. It is the hate and the apparent obsession with "getting" John Kerry (for Kerry's opinion) that defines O'Neill a scary and twisted man.

[karynnj]

16. I was shocked at the excepts where Kerry was quietly trying

to explain to O'Neil that the mission when he was on the swiftboats was different than the one when Kerry was there. It was far safer, was less aggressive and more justifiable than the Market time mission when Kerry was there. O'Neil didn't even try to speak to Kerry - he continued to go on in his strident, high pitched voice -which contrasted with Kerry's cool, calm, rational voice.

One thing I wondered about - but couldn't get the timeline from the Tour of Duty - was this question. Is it possible that Kerry had a role in ending the ludicrous Market time mission? In the book, it says that after a couple of days with his admiral, Kerry asked permission to talk about Vietnam. The admiral who liked Kerry gave permission, and Kerry poured out his view of what was happening. In Tour of Duty, Kerry's comments on his reaction were muted. But, the admiral when he let Kerry leave early wrote very nice things about him AND said he was leaving to run for public office as an anti-war candidate. It seems like Hoffman left and the entire mission (which had been approved by Zumwold) was radically changed about a month to a month and a half after Kerry left Vietnam.

[_dynamicdems]

17. O'Neill's body language told a lot about the man.

Very uptight. I thought then, as I do now, that Mr. O'Neill had issues. He wasn't able to hold a reasonable discussion or debate. All he could do was rant and froth at the mouth. If anything, he's mellowed (at least in his style) over the years.

You bring up some good questions about Kerry in Vietnam. I wonder about some of these things too...and others. My instinct tells me that John Kerry was even more of a hero than history records. At least the history to which we are privy. Nothing to back it up...just a feeling. I'd love to know everything that transpired and that was said behind closed doors.

Someone said something in one of these posts (I can't remember who it was or in which post) that echoed something I've felt about Senator and his capacity for heroic action. They said it was easy to imagine John Kerry as the President that Harrison Ford played in Air Force One. I can picture that without any trouble at all.

[karynnj]

20. If you didn't know that Colson and Nixon were behind him and his "group"

you might almost feel sorry for him. (May be in error because I saw the segment last year of course)

He comes out wearing an ugly suit, I think with white socks. He walks past Cavitt and takes a seat. John Kerry walks in exquisitely dressed, towering over both of the other men, his wonderful hair fashionably long, but not hippie long and politely goes over and greets the host and then O'Neil. Kerry won the crowd, which was NYC I think, before uttering a word.

Then they started to talk. Kerry had a fantastic, low, calm voice that rang with sincerity. O'Neil sounded almost too wound up. The camera also spent more time on Kerry (can you blame the ca merman). I loved the little bit when O'Neil was questioning Kerry's assertion that some things were against international law and asked which law and Kerry said "the Geneva Convention - you've heard of it. Kerry kind of fluttered his eyelashes in disbelief.

The crowd, which was anti-war clearly favored Kerry. Kerry's answers were very thoughtful - I'm sure he would qualify some of them now - but he really was incredible for a 27 year old. Can you imagine how O'Neil felt when he left the stage. I wonder if any comments on their protege's performance are on the Nixon tapes.

[LittleClarkie]

18. That poor guy. I saw that. He just freaked out.

I don't know if I could have handled being in the same room with that idiot either.

My favorite thing last year was when Ted Koppel's crew went to Vietnam, found the village and asked the people there if they remembered the fight that Kerry got his Silver Star for. And how, after showing that footage, Ted reamed O'Neill out, and all O'Neill could say was that Ted should take his word over a bunch of commie Vietnamese in a closed society.

Lies, lying liars indeed.

[_dynamicdems]

19. Wow! I didn't see that!

That must have been something. Good for Ted Koppel. Sorry I missed it. They should have used O'Neill's comments to Ted in a commercial against the Swifties. MoveOn could have probably gotten away with that.

[sandnsea]

21. It was a terrific piece

It's astonishing that such an in-depth piece of journalism got barely a blip on the radar screen. How often do we get a glimpse of life inside Vietnam, or stories about the war from their perspective. For that alone it was fascinating.

It's hard to really know what happened with the story. By then the Clinton people had moved in, IIRC, and they didn't want to deal with Vietnam at all. They've never gotten Vietnam and how desperately this country needs to heal from it, with truth. They could have squashed the report to try to avoid the subject, I really don't know.

[fedupinBushcountry]

22. So if I remember correctly

the lying sleazeball O'Neill was only interested in Kerry, and was not involved with politics, is that correct?

Well the slimey sleazeball lying sack of shit is going after a different liberal this time.

John O'Neill
Swift Boat Veteran

As you know, I helped start the 'Swift Boat Veterans for Truth' during the 2004 election for one reason...;I knew from three decades of personal experience that John Kerry was a liar and a fraud who had betrayed the men he served with.

And there was no way I was going sit idly by as John Kerry tried to become our "Commander-in-Chief".

Today I am working on a similar mission...

A mission to stop the most dangerous liberal in America from winning election to the U.S. Senate.

It's a threat that rises to the same level of danger as the idea of John Kerry as President.

This new threat I'm talking about is far left Congressman Bernie Sanders.

Sanders is as radical as they come.

more>

http://view.e.newsmax.com/?ffcc17-fe941675756c0c7d71-fe2d15797c65067f751d71-ff2c1d70746d

Brought to you by:

Below is a message from Friends of Greg Parke, the Republican candidate running against Bernie Sanders. They have some important information to share with you..

[karynnj]

23. At least the Republican candidate has the guts to sign his name

to it - or the stupidity. My guess is the number of people who though the SBVT were slime was greater than the number of Kerry voters - and Kerry won in Vt.

[TayTay]

24. Bernie Sanders is a beloved and known figure in VT

Vermont is an interesting state. It has a lot of traditional old conservative Yankees in it. It also has more liberal cities like Burlington. Bernie Sanders is the only Rep from Vermont and he has easily won re-election there as the socialist candidate for years. You can hear crusty old fiscal conservatives up there rail about the usual stuff, but they love Bernie. He is a known quantity and much less susceptible to a SBVT smear.

This will backfire tremendously.

[karynnj]

25. We go to Vermont every summer for a week

We've often seen signs for town meetings he will be holding - but they are always for September after we leave. I love reading the papers there. When Dean was governor he often had the progressive party angry with him. (But when we toured the statehouse in 1995 - older man leading it told us that their governor was very smart and a doctor. He went into Dean's unoccupied office and brought out a photo to show my oldest daughter that Dean had a daughter her age.)

It also appears that rather than a character assination, O'Neil is just being a fundraiser here. I assume that the opponent had to sign it for legal reasons and I agree it has to hurt in Vermont.