Posted on 03/22/2004 7:13:09 PM PST by kcvl
In an effort to galvanize the message Kerry wants to deliver in the time remaining, he convened a powerful roster of journalists and columnists in the New York City apartment of Al Franken last Thursday. The gathering could not properly be called a meeting or a luncheon. It was a trial. The journalists served as prosecuting attorneys, jury and judge. The crowd I joined in Franken’s living room was comprised of:
Al Franken and his wife Franni;
Rick Hertzberg, senior editor for the New Yorker;
David Remnick, editor for the New Yorker;
Jim Kelly, managing editor for Time Magazine;
Howard Fineman, chief political correspondent for Newsweek;
Jeff Greenfield, senior correspondent and analyst for CNN;
Frank Rich, columnist for the New York Times;
Eric Alterman, author and columnist for MSNBC and the Nation;
Art Spiegelman, Pulitzer Prize winning cartoonist/author of ‘Maus’;
Richard Cohen, columnist for the Washington Post;
Fred Kaplan, columnist for Slate;
Jacob Weisberg, editor of Slate and author;
Jonathan Alter, senior editor and columnist for Newsweek;
Philip Gourevitch, columnist for the New Yorker;
Calvin Trillin, freelance writer and author;
Edward Jay Epstein, investigative reporter and author;
Arthur Schlesinger, Jr., who needs no introduction.
We sat in a circle around Kerry and grilled him for two long hours. In an age of retail politicians who avoid substance the way vampires avoid sunlight, in an age when the sitting President flounders like a gaffed fish whenever he must speak to reporters without a script, Kerry’s decision to open himself to the slings and arrows of this group was bold and impressive. He was fresh from two remarkable speeches – one lambasting the PATRIOT Act, another outlining his foreign policy ideals while eviscerating the Bush record – and had his game face on. He needed it, because Eric Alterman lit into him immediately on the all-important issue of his vote for the Iraq War Resolution. The prosecution had begun.
Could Al Franken have been John Kerry's secret weapon in the Democratic primaries?
In December, the humorist convened a cadre of New York know-it-alls - including Time managing editor Jim Kelly, Eric Alterman from The Nation, the New Yorker's Hendrik Hertzberg and political historian Arthur Schlesinger Jr. - to meet Kerry at a private gathering at his upper West Side apartment.
"I think the idea was to put John Kerry into the belly of the beast," Kelly tells this Sunday's New York Times Magazine. "It may have been the actual beginning of the new approach he took - 'I'm going to stay in this room and take every question you throw at me.' "
When the candidate and comedian met again seven weeks later, Kerry's nomination was looking secure.
"I told him I'm taking credit for the turnaround," Franken said. "He said, 'I knew you would.' "
March 18, 2004
I wonder if the other "journalists" who attended were as open as Alterman (who apparently referenced the meeting in explaining his conversion).
Are you saying that because of the invitation from Al Franken, as described in the article, or do you have some other reason for thinking Epstein is a Democrat?
And most of these secular Jews in this group would not dare speak against one of their leftist brethren if he did. I watched a number of them today wincing over the extermination of that vermin Yassin.
Yet they are the first to deride Christian Conservatives who have no qualms standing with Israel. I think they loathe Christians more than they like their religious kin in Israel.
Sickening...no spine, only a vacant ideology.
Please FReepmail me if you want on or off my FoxFan list. *Warning: This can be a high-volume ping list at times.
Al Franken, Seriously
By RUSSELL SHORTO
Published: March 21, 2004
He has come to occupy a unique position at the crossroads of the political, media and entertainment worlds and is aggressively exploiting it, personally hooking up prominent figures from all three arenas in the effort to unite against Bush. ''Al has become a rallying point for Democrats,'' said Paul Begala, the former Clinton adviser and now host of CNN's ''Crossfire.'' ''There are a few of them: Senator Clinton, President Clinton, and now Al Franken is another. The thing about this year is, 'liberal' and 'wimp' have become decoupled. Al has been one of the real sparks of that. Liberals are ready to fight.''
SNIP
A good indication of the kind of popularity Franken has achieved among partisan Democrats came at a Kerry rally in Nashua during Franken's New Hampshire swing. In the wake of the Iowa victory, the candidate was fiery and the crowd boisterous. After the speech, the senator came down off the stage and made his way along the bleachers. People cheered, pretty forcefully. Next, Senator Ted Kennedy, who had joined him onstage, came along; he was right up against the barrier, so people could reach out and pat the bearish shoulders. It was a hard-core crowd -- men with working-class faces, gray-haired women in ''I'm a Health Care Voter'' T-shirts -- and there was some real feeling in the place, a blend of hope and nostalgia. You could see Kennedy lighting up from the energy.
SNIP
Some of Franken's recent behind-the-scenes actions are at least as interesting as his public performances and show the depth of his seriousness. Last fall, when Dean seemed the inevitable nominee before a single primary vote had been cast, Franken was troubled that John Kerry was being written off. ''I liked Dean, but I also think Kerry is just a really smart, capable man,'' he told me. ''I'd noticed that he was very good in a small gathering, so I thought, What if I invite some opinion makers over to hear him?'' On Dec. 4, an impressive collection of the media elite and assorted other notables -- Hendrik Hertzberg of The New Yorker, Frank Rich of The New York Times, Howard Fineman and Jonathan Alter of Newsweek, Jim Kelly of Time, Jeff Greenfield of CNN, Eric Alterman of The Nation, Richard Cohen of The Washington Post, Jacob Weisberg of Slate and others, including, as eminence grise, Arthur Schlesinger Jr. -- responded to his call and had a little powwow with Kerry at the Upper West Side apartment of Franken and his wife, Franni.
''The whole thing was odd, I would say, because people didn't know why they were there,'' Kelly said. ''But I think the idea was to put John Kerry into the belly of the beast. It may have been the actual beginning of the new approach he took -- 'I'm going to stay in this room and take every question you throw at me.''' Alterman grilled Kerry on his vote on Iraq, and he gave a long, tortured answer. Then he was asked about it a second time. ''By the third go-round, the answer was getting shorter and more relevant,'' Kelly said.
''It was a really interesting event,'' Alter said. ''A lot of these people hadn't actually met Kerry before. Al wanted them to get to know him. It was an example of him playing a sort of intermediary role in the nexus of politics, media and entertainment.''
The next time Franken saw Kerry was at the rally in Nashua, seven weeks later. Things had changed significantly; Kerry was considered a new and improved candidate and now looked almost unbeatable. The senator took Franken aside, and they talked for a few minutes. ''I told him I'm taking credit for the turnaround,'' Franken told me. ''He said, 'I knew you would.'''
As I recall there was at least one similar story in 2000 about Gore conferring with noted "journalists." This has been SOP for a long time. Shocking, huh?
Franken's political views are more eclectic than you might imagine. He's a big booster of the military and counts John McCain as one of his heroes .
''I want to reclaim 'liberal,''' Franken likes to say. ''I'm a liberal, and I think most Americans are liberals.''
Franken has reportedly signed only a one-year contract. ''I'm doing this because I want to use my energies to get Bush unelected,'' he told me. ''I'd be happy if the election of a Democrat ended the show.''
''Al is truly unusual for an entertainer and celebrity in that he is a functional person with a functional family,'' said *Norman Ornstein, whose family vacations with the Frankens.
*Norman J. Ornstein is a Resident Scholar at the American Enterprise Institute for Public Policy Research and election analyst for CBS News. In addition, Dr. Ornstein writes regularly for USA Today as a member of its Board of Contributors and authors a column called "Congress Inside Out" for Roll Call newspaper. He is currently leading a coalition of scholars and others in a effort to reform the campaign financing system.
If there is one event that changed him in recent years -- if not dampening his cheer, then hardening his anger -- it was the 2002 memorial service for his friend Paul Wellstone. The central chapter in ''Lies,'' and one that isn't meant to be funny, is his painstaking examination of how the event became ''a sort of perfect political storm for Republican opportunists.'' Franken teared up as he talked about his friendship with Wellstone, the circumstances surrounding his death and how moving he found the memorial. But some parts of the event were overtly political, and Franken became enraged as he watched these be highlighted and then pumped up by conservatives until the memorial wound up, in the words of Christopher Caldwell in The Weekly Standard, as ''a rally devoted to a politics that was twisted, pagan, childish, inhumane and even totalitarian.''
''The bastards lied about it,'' Franken said. ''They used it to influence the election. And they got what they wanted.'' Republicans retook the Senate in 2002 and added to their margin in the House. Wellstone's seat, for which Minnesota Democrats had hastily put up Walter Mondale, went to the Republican Norm Coleman.
Franken came out of that event, among other things, with a new prospective ambition. In the aftermath of Mondale's defeat, some influential Minnesotans approached him about running against Coleman in 2008. He is seriously considering it. It would mean moving back to Minnesota and reconnecting with his roots, which attracts him now that he and his wife are empty-nesters. He has talked to Democratic consultants; party fund-raisers have offered to work for him. ''Eventually I'd go to Hillary for advice,'' he said. ''She became a senator without ever having lived in the state before.''
Paul Begala, who has offered his advice, said: ''I think he'd be a terrific candidate. But the biggest thing any politician needs is a thick skin. He'd have to develop that or perish.''
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