Send in the Clown

By VICTOR S. NAVASKY
NYT

ACCORDING to news reports, one of the things that the newly anointed Senator Al Franken of Minnesota “is working hardest at — both for his constituents and everyone else — is proving that he is no longer a comedian.”

Say it ain’t so, Al. Seriously. Turning your back on your comedic past would be a big mistake. A few reasons why:

Mr. Franken got where he is because he distinguished himself — on “Saturday Night Live,” where he started as a writer; on Air America radio; and as best-selling author of such books as “Lies and the Lying Liars Who Tell Them: A Fair and Balanced Look at the Right” — as an informed, sharp, funny and sometimes even wise commentator on public events. Why turn his back on this usable past?

Besides, the radical denial of one’s roots is no way to earn the trust of the voters or anyone else. Richard Nixon, for whom the old Al Franken named his bathroom (filled as it is with Nixon relics), kept trying to reinvent himself as a “new” Nixon — is Tricky Dick really the man Senator Franken wants to emulate?

(More here.)