Julie Ehlers's Reviews > Al Franken: Giant of the Senate

I thought Al Franken was funny on Saturday Night Live (“When you point your finger at someone else, you point three fingers back at yourself. And your thumb at God, I guess”), but as far as I’m concerned his work as a pundit is where he’s really distinguished himself—both as host of his own radio show on Air America and as the author of Rush Limbaugh Is a Big Fat Idiot, Lies and the Lying Liars Who Tell Them, and The Truth (With Jokes) (all of which are excellent and worth your time). Reading and/or listening to Franken for any length of time makes it pretty obvious that he’s a person who values honesty and accuracy, and he’s clearly carried this quality into his work as a senator.

Franken is a very good, very funny writer, and you could absolutely do worse than getting your facts from him. (Back when Republicans wanted to privatize Social Security to “keep it from going bankrupt,” for instance, it was Al Franken who did the math that convinced me that Social Security was in fact in no danger of going bankrupt, and I’m quite comfortable having him as my source.) Giant of the Senate is more of a straightforward memoir than any of his previous books, and all of it was interesting—the parts about his childhood, the chapters about SNL, etc.—but nothing was more fascinating than when he decided to enter politics. The chapters recounting his first campaign, the recount, and his time in the Senate were completely riveting to me, in addition to providing a lot of valuable info about how Washington actually works. In this age of Trump, a lot of us are spending at least a little time trying to influence our elected officials, and if you’re looking for an overview of the whole situation, again, you could do much worse than reading Al Franken.

A lot of politicians “write books” while they’re in office, or running for office, and these are mainly just boring PR tools ghostwritten by someone else, but that’s not the case with Giant of the Senate. For one thing, Al Franken wrote this himself, as he’s done with all of his books. For another, this book is totally honest, contains a fair amount of cursing, and pulls no punches when it comes to Trump or (most hilariously and informatively, in my opinion) Ted Cruz. The book also talks a lot about the art of and necessity for compromise. Franken is realistic about this as well—he knows that compromise is sometimes frustrating, but he also knows it’s the only way to make things happen. He quotes Barney Frank: “The only person I’ve ever voted for who I’ve agreed with one hundred percent is myself. The first time.” But ultimately Franken’s stories of reaching across the aisle are more encouraging than dispiriting. I’ve heard he doesn’t plan to run again in 2020, so here’s hoping he goes for broke in the time he has left in office. We need more elected officials like him.