franken violates separation of comedian and state

the man responsible for such filmic works as 'stuart saves his family', along with the seminal political treatise 'rush limbaugh is a big fat idiot', is now running for senate.

that's right - al franken, formerly of saturday night live and air america radio, is the democratic nominee for senate in the state of minnesota. yes, that minnesota. the same people who put jesse ventura in the governor's mansion are now looking to put stuart smalley on capitol hill.

sure, he's politically motivated, and a keen satirist (though one of the more obnoxious blowhards belonging to the progressives). quoth the reuters, 'He said his books and radio show have given him a solid grounding in policy, and noted that two of his movies that tackled alcoholism are used widely in sobriety clinics.'

that would be great if you were sworn in by putting your hand on the bible and saying 'hi, i'm al, and i'm an alcoholic.' it would also be great if being a pundit qualified you in the slightest to be a governor.

hiring people for jobs based on their exposure in mass media as bothers the piss out of me. look at some of the people that the tv generation were instrumental in electing to various levels of public office - arnold schwarzenegger, ronald reagan, sonny bono, clint eastwood, and so forth. while arnold is doing a decent job, this just strikes me as symbolic of negative effect of visual culture in general and television specifically on our collective culture. it's well-documented that jfk's victory against nixon was partially due to his telegenic good looks. the same could be said for reagan, clinton, and obama.

it would be wise of you to take a page from jon stewart, mr. franken, and realize that the critics should criticize. let the politicians govern. continue slamming the actual leaders all you want, but that's your job - keeping them honest. bringing a pundit like you on board would only contribute to the divisive attack-dog bullshit that has characterized our politics for so long. i suspect you don't quite know what you're getting into, and how you'll likely turn into a corrupt twit very quickly. at this rate, look for 'al franken is a big fat idiot' to hit the bookstands by 2010.