Al Franken, Chickenhawk

I used to love Franken on Saturday Night Live. Although his Stuart Smally character got old very quickly, he did a wonderful Paul Tsongas impression. I’d link to an example on YouTube, but NBC takes its intellectual property very seriously and therefore hundreds of the most humorous bits ever to air on late night television have been tragically withheld from us.

I enjoyed his 2003 book Lies (And the Lying Liars Who Tell Them): A Fair and Balanced Look at the Right. Well, I enjoyed the first half, much of which was a trenchant critique of modern, Fox-style conservatism. Some of the worst distortions of the Bush-era right were properly put in their place. The second half was just left-liberal boilerplate.

But this is what has always stuck in my mind about Franken’s book. It includes an illustrated chapter called “Operation Chickenhawk: Episode One” in which he characterizes many modern war advocates as hypocrites for their effortless success in dodging “service” in Vietnam. The chapter discusses such prominent hawks as George W. Bush, Dick Cheney, Bill O’Reilly, and Bill Bennett. But one big problem with this humorous chapter is it includes Pat Buchanan, who, although we might all agree holds many bad positions, including on the Cold War, did not support the Iraq War. But do you know who did? Al Franken. READ MORE