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Ouch.

More Politicians need to actually do some reading instead of getting their assistants to write a brief for them.

We need to clone him and replace the senate and congress.

Do most Senators get laughs for banal statements like having read studies?

I can't imagine Al Franken enjoys having his old SNL fans filling up the stands and laughing during his questions.

Still, Sen. Franken always gets my stars.

last shot is fucking beautiful

He sets them up, and then knocks them down.

There aren't enough (intentional) comedians in either the Senate or the House.

Whenever I get pissed about my state electing Michelle Bachmann, I remember we also elected Franken, and I feel a little bit better.

The sad thing is, Franken could very well be the only person on that committee who bothered to read the study.

In his books, he devotes entire sections to talking about what a research nerd he is. He practically thrives on hitting the books and trying to verify or debunk claims made by pundits and politicians. It usually proves pretty easy to do so. Meanwhile, every claim he makes in his books gets a citation, a bibliography entry, and often a chart or graph.

How sad is it that this sort of diligence is considered unusual?

Truly, it is the Al Franken Decade.

Is there a Franken 2012 Presidential campaign I can sign up for?

Misreading studies is one of my most hated political tools out there. It takes a well-thought out peer-reviewed article that took thousands of dollars and hundreds of man hours and distils these findings down to some small and misinterpreted data they can use toward their objective. Sadly, studies on a whole like this aren't at all digestible to Joe P. Taxpayer, and he will never pick up on it.
I'm really glad Sen. Franken was so blunt with it and caught the lying liar in his lie. I really love this guy.

I miss Al.