More Unhinged Franken News.

I missed Al Franken's appearance on David Letterman last week, which is hardly surprising since I never watch Letterman. Anyhow, according to Jim Treacher used his appearance to tell a story about how "rightwingers" used an Amazon review of his book to inflict emotional injury on him about the recent death of his mother. Treacher found the exchange painful and, well, unhinged. On the other hand, Captain Spaulding aka Daniel Frank thinks that the story falls into a fine comedic tradtion.

Maybe it does, but, come on, Franken used the story not for comic effect, but to ride his hobbyhorse, which is to dwell upon the Manichean struggle between the forces of virtue and the "neanderthal" Right, who, in his eyes, lack any class, human feeling or common decency.

For what it's worth, here's the Amazon review site. I didn't find the purported crass shot at Franken's tragedy. I did find this review, however, that I thought was useful:

This book is only slightly funny, full of racist statements, and factually inaccurate, opps, I mean full of lies. "On page 85 of Lies, Franken refers to talk-show host Sean Hannity as an 'angry, Irish ape-man.' Three pages earlier, Franken pondered whether Bill O'Reilly suffered from a 'touch of the Irish flu.'" There are so many lies in this book, there are web pages devoted to the lies. http://www.frankenlies.com/ It doesn't deserve even one star.

Hmm. "Irish ape-man." "Irish flu." What could that mean? Well, it probably doen't matter because it's not an attack on "diversity." It's not "hateful." It's a "parody" by a "comedian."

Great things, those quotations marks.