True North

I had a piece in the hopper this morning in which I was going to ask “I wonder how long it’s going to be before a DFLer tries to make “domestic tranquility” an issue in the Minnesota Senate race?”

It didn’t quite make the cut this morning (7AM, my cutoff time for morning blogging, came too dang early). And it’s a shame, since I just knew this was going to happen…

…yep, the ink on Franken’s Rochester hotel tab is barely dry, and suddenly his minions are on the case!

From the 3rd Hour of [Fast Eddie Schultz’s Friday] show.

On the Al Franken scandals:

“This is all to just lather up the right, to shake down the Democrats, to make Norm Coleman look like he’s an altar boy, which he is not. And that is a story that the right wing media in Minnesota will never do. You know, Norm likes to chase the skirt, you know, there’s no doubt about that. Anybody wanna counter me on that? Anybody in the media want to write an editorial about what an altar boy Norm Coleman is? Any right wing talkers in Minnesota want to tell us what an upstanding, wonderful, highly moral guy Norm Coleman is? Come on! Let’s get it on!”

Schultz spent significant time in the 3rd hour of his show on Friday coming to the defense of Al Franken.

Of course he did.

It’s been an open secret forever in Saint Paul and Minnesota politics; Norm and his wife have a rather unconventional marriage. Schultz is being disingenuous if he claims this is some big revelation (or, equally likely, the dim little bulb inside his thick little head hasn’t quite quite figured it out yet, and his prime directive, “blow hard first, ask questions later”, is in control).

And Franken is to be complemented; he’s been married to Franny for thirty-something years. Kudos.

But since when did the party of “MoveOn.org” - an organization founded ten years ago to cajole the American people into ignoring the legal perjury (and, incidentally, marital infidelity) of a middle-aged lothario in the White House - care about such things?

It was made abundantly clear a decade ago; the Democrats wanted us to consider politicians solely on the issues.

Wasn’t that what it was all about?

So if Fast Eddie and his smarter colleagues in the trenches (that’s called “damning with faint praise”) want to try to ding Norm on the issues, go for it; Senator Coleman does have the advantage/liability of actually having a record to criticize.

Unlike Candidate Franken.

Cross-posted at Shot in the Dark. Comments welcome.