In their lawsuit against him, Fox News said Al Franken was "not a well-respected voice in American politics." You sure couldn't prove that by anyone who was in the hall where I was Tuesday evening. Well, there was one guy who seemed to feel that way but we'll get to him. The other eight hundred people present greatly enjoyed hearing Mr. Franken interviewed by an amazingly-svelte Rob Reiner. They cheered as Al talked about his battles with Bill O'Reilly, his criticisms of Ann Coulter and his mixed sympathies for Rush Limbaugh. He also managed to be pretty funny, too. I especially laughed at his description of a political commercial he'd like to see the Democrats air. It would show footage of George W. Bush landing on the aircraft carrier and strutting about. Then in would come a voiceover by Wesley Clark, John Kerry or someone else with actual combat experience who would say, "You know, playing dress-up can be fun…"
About that one guy who didn't like Franken. Maybe it's always been like this but lately, every time I'm at a public event and they have a microphone set up for questions from the audience, the following occurs. The mike seems to attract people who really don't have a question… they just want the spotlight for a little while. Often, they seem to appoint themselves spokespersons for the entire audience ("On behalf of all of us out here, I just want to say how grateful we are that you came here tonight…") or they've figured out some way to tell everyone about themselves in the guise of a question. You have to be especially wary of that one guy who spends the whole speech or panel hovering near the audience mike, waiting for the moment when they throw it open to questions and he gets his big break. He's usually the first one and he's got a speech all prepped for the occasion.
Tonight's first questioner was a gentleman of arguable ethnicity who started reading from a prepared text that quoted several places in Franken's new book where the publication of falsehoods is decried. After other audience members started yelling, "Get to your question," the guy jumped to the last page of his speech and accused Franken of a blatant error. It didn't sound especially significant to me…more a matter of semantics than factual discrepancy. People started booing the guy, more for his stridency than his point (it seemed to me) and the next questioner in line ripped the speech out of his hands. For about three seconds there, it looked like there might be fisticuffs but Franken gave the guy a nice answer, offered to speak with him after the speech, and neatly defused the moment. Later, when Al sat down to sign books for about half the attendees, the rude guy stormed to the front and demanded his personal chat then and there. They made him go to the end of the line, which he did, and from there he held court and lectured largely-uninterested parties on his rather trivial point.
No other questioner was that contentious but some of the others had long speeches that seemed primarily about getting attention and only incidentally about soliciting Franken's thoughts. I get tapped to play Moderator at a lot of events and I have to remind myself to watch out for such folks and to not let them get away with hogging the mike and saying nothing. Or delivering an infomercial about themselves.
I got but have not yet read a signed copy of Franken's best-seller, Lies and the Lying Liars Who Tell Them. When he was on Saturday Night Live, Franken got a rep for being arrogant and rude but I was impressed with his "autograph line" style. He was friendly to everyone, making more conversation than he had to, and going out of his way to shake everyone's hand and make them feel comfortable. Maybe being on the New York Times best-seller list makes a man humble…though come to think of it, that hasn't helped Bill O'Reilly.