[SpinyNorman]

Franken would be nothing today without Rush Limbaugh......If Limbaugh rose as a reaction to Bill Clinton, Al Franken's career as serious political satirist took wing with the 1996 publication of a collection of bons mots called ''Rush Limbaugh Is a Big Fat Idiot and Other Observations,'' a book that, among other things, made the ad hominem attack seem witty, at least to some. The book's enormous success (23 weeks on the best-seller list) was as much as anything a testament to Limbaugh's power and popularity. Ever since its publication, Limbaugh and Franken have been joined at the hip, the Siamese twins of American political bomb throwers. (The two have never met personally, nor have they spoken.)

This is all you need to know. All Franken can do is try to imitate Rush, whom he has parisitized since he was effectively thrown off of SNL for not being funny and the fact that everyone hated him. Excuse me, hates him (no reason to expect it to have stopped. Franken is still Franken!

By this time there is a confused scrum around the heckler, who is holding his ground and still ranting. Franken hits the floor, wedges himself among a couple dozen legs and puts the man in a wrestling hold, grabbing him at the knees. That destabilizes him, and others now quickly push him down the aisle and out the side door of the theater. Franken gets up, looking dazed; his glasses are snapped in two. He's quickly swarmed by confused but excited reporters who want to know, like, what was he doing?

A question soon to be asked by his liberal listeners. The "lunge" clearly demonstrates what Franken intends to do to the truth and free speech: tackle and subdue it.

Sidestepping the cut-basketball issue, Franken still has a wrestler's build, but more to the point he has kept his grappler's mentality.

I was thinking more of a Quasimodo build and a mentality keyed to grappling other men. But of course, I am biased.

Franken has no experience as a radio host, and he plans to go right to the top -- to Limbaugh himself -- for assistance. ''Rush has said he doesn't know why guys with new radio shows don't ask his advice,'' he said. ''So I plan to take him up on that before we go on the air: 'How do you prepare? What's your staff like? How do you screen calls?''' Pause. ''It wouldn't be to taunt him.'' Longer pause. ''Well, it couldn't hurt to try.''

Now I might listen for that, LOL!! Any bets on how many seconds it would take Franken to descend to his typical level of discourse: name calling?

[ozzymandus]

I waded through a few paragraphs of this love letter, but had to quit when my blood sugar got too high. Franken is a parasite and this guy loves him in a not-too-healthy way. The end.