Reply #1: I have to re-post something I wrote the other day about Al [View All]

[The Velveteen Ocelot]

and you can take it for what it's worth:

I'm not all that crazy about the radio show -- sometimes he interrupts serious guests with wisecracks when he'd be more effective if he'd just be quiet and listen -- but he has done great work supporting progressive media like AAR, as well as progressive candidates. I met Al shortly after Paul Wellstone was killed -- a bunch of us volunteers were frantically phone-banking for Mondale in this shabby little office in Minneapolis -- and this was right after Wellstone's memorial service and all the wingnuts were going on about how "inappropriate" and "political" it was.

So anyhow, Al had flown in from New York for the service, and after that he spent a few days helping the Mondale campaign. And while he was in the office he got after this evil Republican beeyotch Sarah Janacek who'd been trashing Wellstone's service and claiming the closed captioning on TV was really instructions to the audience to applaud. He was calling in to a local right-wing radio talk show to rip her a new one, and he was really fired up. I thought he was terrific, and he was very serious and very intense. Al is no fool; he's smart, committed and well-informed. I hope he does run for the Senate in MN in '08. I think he'd hand that weasel Norm Coleman his ass on a plate.