"To what purpose are powers limited, and to what purpose is that limitation committed to writing,
if these limits may, at any time, be passed by those intended to be restrained?"
-- Chief Justice John Marshall, Marbury v. Madison, 1803

Fragging Franken

by Lee

Okay, be honest with yourself here.  If you were in an active combat zone, and had a chance to accidentally shoot Al Franken, would you do it?

FRANKEN: Well, this is my fourth USO tour, and I love doing the tours. This is my first time in an active theater of battle. I was in Kosovo in ‘99, but it was very different.

It was very moving, to see these guys who are—and women—who are in harm’s way. And also very moving to see—like on the first show we did in Kuwait, we sang “God Bless America” every night at the end of the show. And looking at the guys in the front row, I saw there was a black soldier with his arm linked with a white soldier, with a woman, and going back and—and swaying back and forth, and really, this was America to me. And thinking that, you know, the military can really teach a lot of college campuses a lot about affirmative action.

ZAHN: Can teach us all a lot of things.

FRANKEN: Yeah.

ZAHN: Let me ask you this: You’ve been highly critical of the president, as this march to war went on. What do you say to the folks who in spite of your history of doing these USO tours, found your appearance in Iraq disingenuous in some way?

FRANKEN: I don’t know anyone who has. I know that the USO invited me, and when they did, I said yes immediately. They don’t know me. I mean, I support our troops. I’m from the Vietnam generation. I didn’t serve. This is my way of serving. I tell a few jokes and leave very quickly. I was there eight days. These guys are there for nine months.

The soldiers themselves—and there are soldiers who came up to me and said, I don’t agree with anything you say politically, but I really appreciate your coming. And that, you know, then I say, well, it’s my honor. And they’d say, no, it’s my honor. And then I’d say, no, no, no, it’s my honor. And they’d say, no, it’s my honor. And it went on like that for hours, until I said, let’s stop it.

“I don’t know what happened!  I was standing there, watching the show, and the pin just fell out of the grenade!  Then, somehow, the grenade flew off my belt and spontaneously ended up wedged down Franken’s throat!  It was the damnedest thing I ever saw.”

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