Lame Al Franken

I used to think that Al Franken was very funny, so I finally found a way to listen to his "Air America" radio show, which is intended as a kind of leftist counterpart to right-wing talk radio. I don't know how to get it off the air, but you can download shows from his website or subscribe to the rss feed.

But don't bother. This show sounds like bad college radio, complete with a background hum. It is labored, numbingly repetitive, and suffused with painfully lame attempts at humor. Imagine the effect as Franken repeats a joke, baldly stupid the first time around, eight or nine times—enhanced by the fact that he sounds tired and bored. This is not the Al Franken that you might remember from the mists of time, back when Saturday Night Live was funny.

It's not supposed to be just comedy, however. It also fails as political commentary. Franken deals with issues of real importance, but traffics in exaggeration and spin so extreme as to amount to distortion. I'm disappointed that he didn't consider cold accuracy to be the best foil to distortions on the right, rather than a warped view through a Democratic party looking glass.