Franken Wins and Rush Limbaugh is still a big fat idiot By Joe Conason
....The tenor of the Fox attacks grew more feverish with the ranting of Brian Kilmeade, who judged Franken "barely sane if you read his books, and quite angry in every facet of his life." Kilmeade went on to describe the new senator as "hateful," "evil," bitter," and "maniacal," and again as "angry." Sean Hannity echoed Fox's other amateur shrinks, saying, "This guy, Franken, he's not all there."
So did R. Emmett Tyrell, the Human Events columnist and former editor of the American Spectator, who appeared to confuse Franken's portrayal of a fictional character with the former comedian's own personality, and went on to predict that he will need "anger management counseling" during his Senate term. "He was weird on 'Saturday Night Live' in the 1970s, on which he popularized a goofball character named Stuart Smalley, a self-help guru who repeated over and again, 'I'm good enough, I'm smart enough, and doggone it, people like me!' … My guess is that the Stuart Smalley character is the essential Al Franken, a weirdo."
Speaking for Pajamas Media, Rick Moran called Franken "a bat guano crazy liberal" and gloated over the "rabid, unbridled, hateful partisanship" that will bring both the senator and his party to grief. "It is a pathological, almost clinical condition that will explode from time to time in bitter denunciation of the opposition, supplying bloggers and commentators with a cornucopia of material," wrote Moran with grim satisfaction, adding that "Franken's psychosis" includes a pathological hatred of Christians and particularly Catholics (which may come as a shock to his Catholic wife, Franni).
Then there was Limbaugh, the capo di tutti right-wing capi, who warned with pithy brevity that the 60th Democratic vote in the Senate is "a genuine lunatic."
Calmer but no less nasty was the assessment of the Wall Street Journal editorial page, which insisted that the Democrat had somehow hijacked the Senate seat from the rightful Republican victor. "Mr. Franken now goes to the Senate having effectively stolen an election," said the editorial, without deigning to mention that Republicans in Minnesota, including the governor, had effectively vetted the recount and canvassing from Election Day forward, up to the final Supreme Court decision.
In fact, the most credible assessment of the "stolen election" comes not from Democrats or liberals but from the Republican conservatives in Minnesota. Foremost among them may be Sara Janacek, who told Washington Post readers that those accusations are false. "The state media -- and a majority of the public -- do think Franken's election was legitimate," she said. "We had an open and very public recount process."
As always, the sneering critics of the comedian turned candidate underestimated him, and they still do. Anyone who knows Franken, as I do, sees little of him in the caricatures that have dominated his coverage in the conservative media and too often have shaped his image in the mainstream media. He certainly isn't crazy. He isn't mean. He isn't frivolous. And he certainly didn't cheat his way into the Senate.
In fact, Franken is considerably brighter and far more stable than his enemies, a group whose public behavior and personal conduct are replete with embarrassment, not to mention disgrace. Unlike many of them, he has a solid marriage and raised two outstanding children who adore him -- a personal accomplishment that belies the ugly nonsense about his "anger" and "bitterness." It is the Fox loudmouths who are bitter, no doubt remembering the day their company's stupid lawsuit against Franken was laughed out of court (and made a lot of money for him).
