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Does The Mainstream Media Have A Liberal Bias? On A Couple Of Things, Maybe. Compared To The American Public At Large, Probably A Slightly Higher Percentage Of Journalists, Because Of Thier Enhanced Power Of Discernment, Realize They Know A Gay Person Or Two, And Are, Therefore, Less Frightened Of Them.

-Al Franken

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Does The Mainstream Media

Al Franken

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Does The Mainstream Media Have A Liberal Bias? On A Couple Of Things, Maybe. Compared To The American Public At Large, Probably A Slightly Higher Percentage Of Journalists, Because Of Thier Enhanced Power Of Discernment, Realize They Know A Gay Person Or Two, And Are, Therefore, Less Frightened Of Them.

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I Think Hell Exists On Earth. It's A Psychological State, Or It Can Be A Physical State. People Who Have Severe Mental Illness Are In Hell. People Who Have Lost A Loved One Are In Hell. I Think There Are All Kinds Of Different Hells. It's Not A Place You Go To After You Die.

Grown-up Love Means Actually Understanding What You Love, Taking The Good With The Bad And Helping Your Loved One Grow. Love Takes Attention And Work And Is The Best Thing In The World.

I Grew Up In Minnesota, Where We Treasure Our Tradition Of Civic Engagement - And Our Record Of Having The Nation's Highest Voter Participation.

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When A Company Is Able To Establish A Dominant Market Position, Consumers Lose Meaningful Choices. You Might Not Like That Facebook Shares Your Political Opinions With Politico, But Are You Really Going To Delete All The Photos, All The Posts, All The Connections - The Presence You’ve Spent Years Establishing On The World’s Dominant Social Network?

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Minnesota Has A Proud Tradition Of Having Two Senators On The Ag Committee - A Tradition I'd Like Very Much To Continue.

When I First Started Writing For Television In The Seventies And Eighties, The Internet Didn't Exist, And We Didn't Need To Worry About Foreign Websites Illegally Distributing The Latest Tv Shows And Blockbuster Movies Online.

I Got Interested In Politics During The Civil Rights Movement And Then Vietnam.

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I Felt Like The Luckiest Kid In The World. And I Was. I Was Growing Up Middle-class In A Time When Growing Up Middle-class In America Meant There Would Be Jobs For My Parents, Good Schools For Me To Prepare Myself For A Career, And, If I Worked Hard And Played By The Rules, A Chance For Me To Do Anything I Wanted.

I Don't Know What Happens To You After You Die. I'm Not Banking On There Being, Like, A Heaven.

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We Need An Investigation, Because We Don't Know What Donald Trump Owes Russia. We Don't Know How Many Russian Oligarchs Have Invested In His Business.

Bill Clinton Is The Greatest President Of The 20th Century Because I Played Touch Football With Him.

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Antitrust Law Isn't About Protecting Competing Businesses From Each Other, It's About Protecting Competition Itself On Behalf Of The Public.

Net Neutrality Has Been In Place Since The Very Beginning Of The Internet.

I Don't Consider Myself An Artist Necessarily, But Craftsmen Or People In The Arts, Their Spiritualism Is Sort Of When You're Writing Well Or Performing Well Or Doing Whatever You Do Well, There's An Element Of That That's Either God-given, A Talent That You're Not Necessarily Responsible For.

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I'm Sure I've Devoted Enough Thought To Rush Limbaugh For One Lifetime.

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If You Look At Terrorists, They Really Have No Sense Of Humor.

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Yeah, We Shot Ourselves In The Foot Right Out Of The Gate. The Guy Who Ran It At First Misled Pretty Much Everybody About How Much Capital We Had. He Said We Had Enough To Go Three Years Without Making Money, And We Had Enough To Go Three Weeks.

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To Ask Whether The Mainstream Media Has A Conservative Or Liberal Bias Is Like Asking Whether Al-qaida Uses Too Much Oil In Their Hummus. It's - I Think They Might Use Too Much Oil In Their Hummus - But It's The Wrong Question.

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Serious Business

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He [newt Gingrich] Is The Most Unpopular Politician In America. His Favorable Rating Is Only Four Points Higher Than The Unabomber.

The Reason I Wrote Political Satire Was Because I Thought It - Politics - Was Important... That Public Policy Was Important. Then I Transitioned Into Books, Then Into Radio.

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I Do Personal Attacks Only On People Who Specialize In Personal Attacks.

Personal Attacks

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In My First Week As A U.s. Senator, I Had The Privilege Of Participating In The Supreme Court Confirmation Hearing For Judge Sonia Sotomayor.

When You Live In New York, One Of Two Things Happen - You Either Become A New Yorker, Or You Feel More Like The Place You Came From.

Today I Will Masterbate! Okay, That Was A Mistake. I Should Have Written "today I Will Masterbate--if I Want To!

During Vietnam, I Was In College, Enjoying My Student Deferment. The Government Wisely Felt That, In My Case, Military Service Was Less Important Than Completing My Studies To Prepare Me For My Chosen Career: Comedian.

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The Fourth Amendment Doesn't Apply To Corporations.

Fourth Amendment

I've Spent My Entire Career Being A Satirist.

What You See On The Campaign Trail Is Me. It's Easy Being Me.

When You Encounter Seemingly Good Advice That Contradicts Other Seemingly Good Advice, Ignore Them Both.

There's An Appeal To The American Sense Of Exceptionalism, That We're Morally Superior, As Way To Not Be Self-critical. I Think That's A Bit Dangerous.

I Also Focus On Bush And His Administration - Who Do A Lot Of Lying - And How A Right-wing Media Has Allowed Them To Get Away With A Lot Of Stuff That, In A Different Media Environment, They Probably Wouldn't Be Able To Get Away With.

Sometimes If I Tell People, 'i'm Afraid That I'm Really A Fraud,' Or 'i Have A Lot Of Self-doubt,' They Go, 'oh, No, You're Kidding.' I Go, 'no, I'm Really Honest.'

I'm Crushed By The Responsibility Of Writing A Satirical Book.

I Don’t Know How Many Of You Have Been To New York, But If A Building Is Two Blocks Away From Anything, You Can’t See It.

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Let's Keep The Internet Weird. Let's Keep The Internet Free.

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My Views About God Come From My Dad. Dad Told Me That He Believed Nature, Which To Him Included Humankind, To Be So Beautiful, So Magnificent, That There Had To Be Something Behind It All.

I Believe In Not Attacking A Country Pre-emptively Unless You're Sure Of What You're Doing And You're Working With Allies.

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The Crash Of 2008 Was Driven In No Small Part By Unfair Practices In The Mortgage Industry Which Led To Many Consumers Being Trapped In Loans They Didn't Understand And Couldn't Afford.

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Russia Has Cultivated An Opaque Network Of Patronage Across The Region That It Uses To Influence And Direct Decision- Making.

The Civil Rights Movement Was Very Important In My House, And Then Vietnam Was Very Important 'cause There Were Two Boys, So I Came Of Age During A Very Heated Political Climate.

If You Hear, Day After Day, Liberals Are Rooting Against Armed Forces, That Is Eventually Going To Have An Effect On Soldiers And Troops Who Are Actually Going To Believe That And It's Wrong. It's Just Wrong.

Yeah, But You Need An Experienced Radio Veteran Who Is A Liberal Advocate. And There Just Hadn't Been Any Radio That Did That. And So They Weren't Trained - They Had Developed All These Bad Habits Of Being Objective And Balanced And Stuff Like That.

I’ve Never Understood Why We Would Want To Deny All The Joys - And The Challenges - Of Marriage To Anyone. Which Is Why I Think Any Loving, Committed Couple — Gay Or Straight — Should Be Able To Get Married.

Anybody Who Deliberately Propagandizes With Lies Should Be Held Up To Scorn And Ridicule.

If I Put Myself On The Ballot And Even 50 People Voted For Me, It'd Be A Travesty.

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But In The Right-wing Media, They Do Have A Right-wing Bias. And They Also Have An Agenda. So Their Agenda Is: We're An Adjunct Of The Republican Party, And We're Going Push That Agenda Every Day, And, As You Say, Brand These Stories That Help Further The Right-wing Cause.

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You Know, Lincoln Was Funny. I Don't Think F.d.r. Was Very Funny. But Lincoln Was Funny. Lincoln Was Really Funny. But I Think You Should Get Elected First, And Then Show That You're Funny.

Asking The Question Whether The Mainstream Media Has A Liberal Or Conservative Bias Is Like Asking Whether Al Qaeda Uses Too Much Oil In Their Hummus. I Might Think They Use A Little Bit Too Much Oil; Some People Might Think It's A Little Dry. But The Problem With Al Qaeda Is They Want To Kill Us. And The Problem With The Mainstream Media Is That It Has These Other Biases That Are Much More Important.

I Want A President Who Can Handle A Cream Soda.

Let's Not Let The Government Sell Us Out. Let's Fight For Net Neutrality.

If We Have George W. Bush As President, We're Going To Go Back To The Kind Of Policies We Had When His Father And Ronald Reagan Were President.

Being A Comedian, You're Under Pressure. You Have To Deal With Stress And Pressure To Perform - To Deal With Pressure Without Stress.

We Need To Start By Having A Conversation About Climate Change. It Would Be Irresponsible To Avoid The Issue Just Because It's Uncomfortable To Talk About.

When You Win An Election, What You Really Win Is A Chance To Go To Work For Working Families Who Need A Voice In Minnesota.

Our Laws Need To Reflect The Evolution Of Technology And The Changing Expectations Of American Society. This Is Why The Constitution Is Often Called A “living” Document.

I Had A Great Time Working On The Movies, Both The Major Movies I've Done. I've Had A Great Time. I Like The People In Hollywood A Lot.

The Institutions That We've Built Up Over The Years To Protect Our Individual Privacy Rights From The Government Don't Apply To The Private Sector. The Fourth Amendment Doesn't Apply To Corporations. The Freedom Of Information Act Doesn't Apply To Silicon Valley. And You Can't Impeach Google If It Breaks Its 'don't Be Evil' Campaign Pledge.

Why Don't We Focus On What Afghan Women Can Do? They Can Cook, Bear Children, And Pray. As I Recall, That Was Fine For Our Grandmothers.

I Think Clinton Fatigue Was A Real Thing. It's Just Hard To Get Comfortable With Gore - It Was Hard For Him To Project Who He Is, The Person People Know In Private.

One Thing I've Noticed About Politics Is That These Guys Have Pretty Thick Hides.

My Dad Was A Terrible Businessman.

No One Is More Sensitive To The Issue Of Overeating Than The Creator Of Stuart Smalley.

My Spiritual Life Is... Sometimes I Have Access To It And Sometimes I Don't. When I Do Have Access To It, It's Usually A Sense Of My Understanding What The Best Course Of Action Or The Best Thing For Me To Do. By Best, I Mean When I Have A Real Sense Of Doing The Right Thing And Doing Good For People And The Connected Universe Of Everybody.

I Believe People Have A Right To Know What's Going On With Their Information And How It's Collected, How It's Stored And Who Gets It.

Bob Dole Used To Be Really Funny. Barney Frank Can Be Kind Of Funny. Bob Kerrey Has A Good Sense Of Humor.

The Thing That Interests Me Least About The Radio Business Is The Radio Business. But I've Had To Learn A Little Bit About It. It's Not Rocket Science: You Get Ratings, That's Good.

Skepticism Turns To Cynicism, Which Leads To Apathy And Despair, Which Can Cause Sleeplessness, Dry-mouth, And Loss Of Sex Drive?

I Once Asked The Most Fabulous Couple I Know, Madonna And Guy Ritchie, How They Kept Things Fresh Despite Having Been Married For Almost Seven Months. 'it's A Job, Al,' Guy Told Me. 'we Work At It Every Day.'

My Dad Didn't Graduate From High School, Ended Up Being A Printing Salesman, Probably Never Made More Than $8,000 A Year. My Mom Sold Real Estate And Did It Part Time.

Some Of George W. Bush's Friends Say That Bush Believes God Called Him To Be President During These Times Of Trial. But God Told Me That He/she/it Had Actually Chosen Al Gore By Making Sure That Gore Won The Popular Vote And, God Thought, The Electoral College. 'that Worked For Everyone Else,' God Said.

I Think If You're Going To Do A Movie About Reagan, You Do It About The Fact That He Created The Huge Deficit, That He Armed The Mujahideen, That He Armed Saddam, That He Armed Iran, That He Armed Two-thirds Of The Axis Of Evil, And That He Funded Terrorists In Central America. He Was, In My Mind, A Terrible President.

Humor And Seriousness Are Not In Opposition To Each Other.

Most Americans Don’t Think About Antitrust Law When They Look At Their Cable Bill, Flip Channels On Tv, Or Worry About What Their Favorite Website Knows About Them. But They Should.

I'm For Israel's Right To Exist.

When People Talked About Protecting Their Privacy When I Was Growing Up, They Were Talking About Protecting It From The Government. They Talked About Unreasonable Searches And Seizures, About Keeping The Government Out Of Their Bedrooms.

Veterans Report That Service Dogs Help Break Their Isolation. People Will Often Avert Their Eyes When They See A Wounded Veteran. But When The Veteran Has A Dog, The Same People Will Come Up And Say, 'hi' To Pet The Dog And Then Strike Up A Conversation.

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I’m Good Enough, I’m Smart Enough, And Dog-gone It, People Like Me.

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