The Journal

Issue date: 10/26/06 Section: News

FRANKEN

"Saturday Night Live" launched his career. Since then he has tackled the New York Times Bestseller's List and talk radio, and the Senate might be next. Al Franken has made a living voicing his political opinion and sharing his hatred for the current administration.

He tells it like he sees it.

"Al Franken: God Spoke," was filmed during 2004 and will be shown on campus Oct. 26. It is a documentary following Franken, the former SNL writer and performer, from his publicized feud with cable TV talk show host Bill O'Reilly from the Fox News Channel to his efforts against the re-election of President George Bush in 2004.

"The filmmakers approached me about the project," Franken said. "They edited it and I was just really nervous until I saw it and how I come off, because after a while you forget the cameras are there".

Franken was in St. Louis to attend a Claire McCaskill fundraiser and to air his hit talk show live Sept. 18 and 19. His show can be heard on Talk Monster 1190 KRFT, from noon to 3 p.m.

Before Franken was airing his dislike with the current administration in the White House, he spent fifteen years, from 1975 to 1980, and then again from 1985 to 1995 as a cast member of SNL.

"During that period we would do a lot of political satire," Franken said. "But, we didn't really feel that it was the place of the show to have a political stance."

There were 75 different creative people on the show and none of them felt the writer should set the agenda for other people.

"It just didn't seem right," Franken said.

While he was proud of that work, Franken left the show in 1995. He was mad at what he described as the Gingrich Revolution, a term used to describe the massive 54-seat swing in the House from Democrat to Republican. Franken decided to write about his thoughts on politics.

Franken made the shift from comedic writer to political satirist with ease. He has written five best-selling political books. "Rush Limbaugh is a Big Fat Idiot and Other Observations" was the first of what would be one of three books to reach No. 1.

"That's what sort of started this transition," Franken said.

By the time the book came out, he wasn't mad anymore because Clinton was running the country. It wasn't until the end of 2002 and 2003 that he began to get mad at President Bush and the current administration. This prompted his second book, "Lies and the Lying Liars Who Tell Them: A Fair and Balanced Look at the Right."

Continued...

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