Comments on: Franken & Sotomayor Share ‘Perry Mason’ Memories… Franken Loves the Sound of His Own Voice

By: Kevin

Kevin — Tue, 21 Jul 2009 19:36:05 +0000

To Lionhearted:

Ad hominem attacks beget ad hominem attacks and don’t further any kind of policy discussion, compromise, or civility in general. The anti-Palin vitriol is just the latest escalation in this cycle. (I think Palin is unfit for public office, but I’m opposed to the name calling all around.) Here are the ad hominem attacks in your post, in case you were wondering.

Al Franken is

1) a pitiful joke
2) a clown
3) a mean spirited man
4) loves to talk about himself
5) has a quick temper
6) has a foul mouth
7) is out of his league

To Viki:

If you think Franken is a boring windbag, well, sure, you’re totally entitled to that opinion. You’re entitled to your opinion that he “seems ill-prepared for the Senate Judiciary Committee SCOTUS hearing” too, but it seems to me completely unreasonable that you would base that opinion on watching less than 10% of the time he spent questioning Sotomayor, especially given that he is the most junior senator on the panel and thus lots of questions had already been asked and answered (including a lot of discussion about Perry Mason) before Franken even got his turn.

It just seems to me like you’re not even trying to be fair.

By: Lionhearted

Lionhearted — Mon, 20 Jul 2009 08:15:07 +0000

To Kevin:

Al Franken is a pitiful joke, a clown, and a mean spirited man. His whole Perry Mason thing was showboating and was just plain stupid. To admire him for that is ridiculous. He loves to talk about himself and he has a quick temper with anyone who doesn’t fawn over him or agree with him. I can’t wait until he has a typical hissy fit with a senior senator. He has a foul mouth an d I know the fur will fly. I’m hearing that he is already trying to hog the media light and jump the ranks and it’s making veteran Democrat senators annoyed. His dumb story about watching Perry Mason had no place in this hearing. The man is out of his league.

By: admin

admin — Mon, 20 Jul 2009 02:43:16 +0000

I have, and say what you will, Franken’s long-winded droning was painful for me to listen to. Your reference to Palin is strange… my opinion of Franken and his amateurish performance on the congressional panel is nothing like the vicious, foul name-calling of Palin from liberal writers, comedians, and politicians, nor the harsh questioning of liberal politicians in the Senate hearings for previous conservative SCOTUS nominees. Comparing my opinion of Franken to the vile crucification of Palin is laughable. Conservatives on the Sotomayor panel have been exceedingly polite and civil to Sonia, she herself has said that to the press… that civility was absent during Thomas’s congressional hearing, which I watched at the time. Anita Hill was opposing Thomas’s appointment and her charges of sexual improprieties were lodged pretty much at the 11th hour. She was not a SCOTUS nominee, but someone without any proof suddenly making a grave accusation about events that had occurred a decade earlier. As I recall, a man is innocent until proven guilty, and there was no proof, just Hill’s word. So, I would expect there to be strong questioning of her. I don’t remember any “kid glove treatment” at all with Thomas, but a lot of embarrassing questions and humiliation for him, both in the press and in the hearings. Obviously, you don’t share the same opinion of the unlikeable Franken and his boring droning in the clip. You’re entitled to that. As I am to my opinion, which remains the same.

By: Kevin

Kevin — Sun, 19 Jul 2009 20:38:37 +0000

Hard to believe you can get all “And Franken talks, and talks, and talks (almost as insufferably much as POTUS)” over a 2 minute clip of a 30 minute section of a 4 day hearing. And if you want to dredge up the past, there’s plenty to go around on both sides. You say Democrats and Clarence Thomas, but you could easily say Republicans and Anita Hill.

But go watch other clips. Watch all the Bunny Softball questions all the Republicans asked all of W’s Supreme Court Nominees. Watch the remaining 28 minutes of Franken’s first Q&A session with Sotomayor. Get some perspective.

All the nomination hearings in the TV age are nothing but political theater. The senators have all met privately with the nominee and have pretty much all made up their minds before the hearings started. So get over the fact that people who disagree with you will agree with other people you disagree with. Or at least stick to arguing what you disagree about and get off the ad hominem stuff that you are complaining is coming at Palin.

By: AFVET

AFVET — Sun, 19 Jul 2009 18:56:31 +0000

Nonsensical trivia is Franken in bunny ears and a diaper.
Personally, I would love to see ALL the senators in bunny ears and a diaper.

Isn’t that what we have now ??

Wait, I just envisioned that, and it ain’t pretty.

By: admin

admin — Sat, 18 Jul 2009 21:58:38 +0000

You call it “humanity,” I call it “nonsensical trivia.” If Democrats had shown 1/100th such compassion or humanity when viciously grilling Clarence Thomas during his confirmation hearings, and subsequent marginalizing of HIS personal story of struggle and overcoming incredible odds, I’d be more forgiving and less cynical. Bunny softball pitches to Sotomayor, much like simpering questions posed in a teen celebrity fan magazine rather than to someone aspiring to sit on the most important court in the world. She is someone with a controversial record as an activist and judge, but the Democrat panel members, as evidenced here and in many other clips I’ve screened, have whitewashed any criticism of her (the White House [i.e., Robert Gibbs] has been unusually dictatorial in admonishments/veiled threats against anyone who expresses criticism of her) or have attempted to distract from those controversies since she’s a liberal. Perry Mason serves, to me anyway, as a metaphor… an ironic metaphor. And as was pointed out in this post, it was cited that the observation applied to this one clip only. I stand by my opinion of this moronic clip. If indeed Franken addresses this in another clip from the hearings and doesn’t come across as a sycophant and explores her true character with legitimately tough questions about her past judgments and activism, yes, I will give him some credit.

By: Kevin

Kevin — Sat, 18 Jul 2009 19:34:14 +0000

You’re kidding, right? Franken asked several substantive questions about judicial activism, the right to free speech as it applies to regulating internet access, and constitutional interpretation, and you’re giving him grief about showing some humanity in finding a commonality?

As for him not exploring why watching Perry Mason caused her to become a prosecutor instead of a defense attorney, he did say he was bringing up the whole thing because he found that fascinating and telling, but he didn’t need to explore it because she had already explained it earlier in the hearing when speaking to Senator Klobuchar. She said:

In one of the episodes, at the end of the episode, Perry Mason,
with the character who played the prosecutor in the case, were meeting
up after the case, and Perry said to the prosecutor: It must cause
you some pain, having expended all that effort in your case, to have
the charges dismissed.

And the prosecutor looked up and said: No, my job as a
prosecutor is to do justice, and justice is served when a guilty man
is convicted and when an innocent man is not.

And I thought to myself: That’s quite amazing, to be able to
serve that role; to be given a job, as I was by Mr. Morgenthau, a job
I’m eternally grateful to him for, in which I could do what justice
required in an individual case.

So give him credit for paying attention and not playing to the people who are only going to watch his small portion of the whole hearing.

By: chsw

chsw — Fri, 17 Jul 2009 20:22:13 +0000

First, MN elects Ventura as governor. Now it puts a clown in the Senate. Obviously, MNtans arfe playing a joke on the rest of us. Do you remember Cicciolina in Italy’s parliament? That’s what’s next. MN will send a porn star to Congress.

chsw