Al Franken

From "Al Franken Interview" By Stephen Thompson, The Progressive

I do USO [United Service Organizations] tours, and when I do a USO tour, I don’t go, “Your President lied to you and you’re dying for no reason.” I do, “Boy, this army grub doesn’t agree with me. So far, I’ve had five MREs and none of them seem to have an exit strategy.” I’m a comedian: I do a Saddam bit, you know what I mean? [Laughs.] So, if I do a venue where it’s only appropriate to be funny and not political, I can do that. The question is whether I’m going to do The Al Franken Sitcom soon, and the answer is probably not. I’ve got bigger fish to fry.

As the historian William Blum recently wrote:

"Are American soldiers brave because they're risking their lives every day? No, they're foolish; foolish to be risking their lives for the awful purposes of this war, which they do not even understand. If I'm opposed to the war because of the thousand kinds of horror it rains down upon the Iraqi people, how can I support those who carry out the horrors?

Al Franken, the humorist who's the leading host of Air America radio, would like you to believe that he's against the war, but he went to Iraq to entertain the troops a while back. Does that make sense? Why does the military bring entertainers to the soldiers? To lift their spirits. Why does the military want to lift the soldiers' spirits? A happier soldier does his job better. What's the soldier's job? Raining down a thousand kinds of horror upon the Iraqi people."