Al Franken, former Air America radio/Sundance TV talk show host, writer of bestselling books that Fox was stupid enough to sue over; currently running for the senate, is "vulgar."
Some institutions must be more than a mirror to our culture, including families, religious communities and government. At its best, politics can offer examples of civility and generosity that challenge selfishness and prejudice -- the tradition so far embraced by both John McCain and Barack Obama. At the very least, politics should not actively push our culture toward vulgarity and viciousness. This is not prudery; it is a practical concern for the cooperation and mutual respect necessary in a functioning democracy. And it is hard to believe those causes would be served by a Sen. Franken.
As Josh Marshall muses,
Gerson...helped bring us Dick Cheney, state-sanctioned torture and official lies to lead the country to war...
But some things Al Franken said disgust him.
Still, we can assume that Gerson is right to assert
it is not common for one member to tell another “[expletive] you” —
He asserted that less than two months ago in a column arguing that we shouldn’t be scared of McCain’s temper. McCain, you see, told Sen. John Cornyn just that (“[expletive] you”) during the immigration debate.
But, says Gerson-
McCain, after all, has contributed to the legend of his own temper -- using it as evidence of his fierce independence.
Got it? Al Franken? Vulgarity. John McCain? "civility and generosity." “fierce independence."
BTW, in that same column, the Evangelical Gerson implies that the only time McCain's temper has really worried him is when the Senator called the raving lunatic Pat Robertson and the now dead sex-phobic babbling idiot Jerry Falwell "agents of intolerance."
Ok, "raving lunatic" and "sex-phobic babbling idiot" are my personal opinions (though I can back em' up, follow the links).
But they are or were "agents of intolerance" by anybody's definition.
Priorities, of the Bush conservative Evangelical.
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