Talk:Al Franken: Difference between revisions

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Revision as of 14:44, 3 September 2005

Revert war

This is getting pretty tired, I think it should stay the way it is now. The other gives an appearance of POV. If it happens again I'm going to put it into dispute. googuse 03:40, July 13, 2005 (UTC)

I have placed the page under a POV dispute and will request arbitration - the daily reverts by Josephf are tiring. googuse 06:52, July 14, 2005 (UTC)

Thank you, Googuse, I agree, it's getting tiresome. I've made a couple more edits to the section in question:

Removed: "As stated by Franken and the show organizers, a principal cause for Air America's formation was to defeat the re-election of George W. Bush as President of the United States."

If someone wants to keep this, please provide a source. -asx- 00:44, 18 July 2005 (UTC)[reply]

Removed: "Franken said that he chose the title The O'Franken Factor in hopes that Bill O'Reilly, who hosts The O'Reilly Factor and The Radio Factor, would sue him. O'Reilly never took the bait, so . . ."

Again, this may or may not be true, but given that it appears to be designed to make Franken look bad, I have removed it as of questionable veracity. -asx- 00:44, 18 July 2005 (UTC)[reply]

Removed: "Although the original goal failed to materialize and Bush was re-elected, Franken signed on with Air America for another two years."

This represents, as far as I can tell, the personal opinion of one contributor to Wikipedia. If it is indeed a fact, it should not be hard for the one contributor to post a citation. -asx- 00:44, 18 July 2005 (UTC)[reply]

I don't have a dog in this hunt, but this seems like a rather petty dispute. The Air America guys don't like O'Reilly and would love to annoy him, and they don't like Bush and they were unhappy Bush got elected but they haven't folded their tent and gone away. This doesn't make Franken look either good or bad, it just makes Franken look like a feisty player in the political-media arena, which is what he is. You could flip all this around to describe Limbaugh's reaction to Bill Clinton being reelected, and you have the same thing. So what's the big deal? Wasted Time R 01:52, 18 July 2005 (UTC)[reply]

Mbstone wrote...

I deleted a phrase that began, "It is rumoured..." one, because we can do better than rumours (or rumors); and also, this article is about Franken, not the Fox pundit who is rumoured to have been behind Fox's ill-fated lawsuit.Mbstone 00:46, 3 Sep 2003 (UTC)

Also, lots of people are described in Wikipedia as "funny" and/or "successful" and/or "famous." Maybe all three together is a little POV, but each of these terms is accurate as pertains to Franken, and perhaps the people who delete these characterizations are proving to everyone how absolutely humorless some fanatics of a certain right-wing-propaganda cable channel can sometimes be.Mbstone 00:50, 3 Sep 2003 (UTC)

Recent edits

Please do not remove material; instead, we try to add in other material to make the article follow Wikipedia:NPOV. If you have a problem with the current content, please feel free to discuss it here. Best, [[User:Meelar|Meelar (talk)]] 16:07, 2004 Aug 7 (UTC)

Thejackhmr this article needed some adjustment; it had some subjective lines that needed to be redacted in order to comply with Wikipedia:NPOV. Perhaps they could be reworded by the author and reinserted.

I've tried a compromise version; see what you think. [[User:Meelar|Meelar (talk)]] 16:22, 2004 Aug 7 (UTC)

Thejackhmr Perfect... Just one setence removed; was oddly worded, quasi-subjective, unsubstantial and possibly redundant:

In an appearance on Late Night with Conan O'Brien in 2004, Franken claimed that Fox was either claiming rights to the phrase "fair and balanced" itself, or to ironical usage of it.

Looks fine to me, then. Best, [[User:Meelar|Meelar (talk)]] 16:35, 2004 Aug 7 (UTC)

Franken picture

Can we use a picture that's not an advertisment for his CD?

I put a much more awesome picture up instead of that stupid one.

Do we have permission to use this new picture? Gamaliel 00:00, 10 May 2005 (UTC)[reply]

I researched the portrait's origin. It's a promotional shot, but it's supposed to be attributed to the photographer. I've updated both the image page and the article accordingly. — Lifeisunfair 19:36, 10 May 2005 (UTC)[reply]

I've reduced the dimensions of the article version to 236x244 (¼ the original size, but still much larger than the previous photograph). Clicking on this image leads to the full-size (472x488) version. — Lifeisunfair 18:50, 10 May 2005 (UTC)[reply]

Criticism?

Shouldn't there be a criticism section? Bill O'Reilly, Michael Moore, etc. all have a criticism section.

Mention Jewish Heritage?

Franken is jewish... Should that maybe be mentioned in the article, or is that irrelevant? --Konstantin 5 July 2005 22:13 (UTC)

Judging from the way Franken brings it up in Liars, he would think it is.Billy P 06:58, 14 July 2005 (UTC)[reply]

I hesitated to edit but then figured if my solution to this concern was incorrect, someone else could undo what I did. I concur that there needs to be some reference to his religious proclivities, as he's made it clear they are important to him. So I added "into a Jewish family" before "and grew up in St. Louis Park." I noticed in the Woody Allen entry and others, that's how it was tastefully included. I'd also included Al Franken's name in the category of Jewish American actors. Though it can be argued he's not the best of actors, he does belong in the same company with Gene Wilder, Gilda Radner and Woody Allen. Oh, and shouldn't the quotes be over at wikiquote.org or is there a reason why he doesn't have a wikiquote page? ZachsMind 22:50, 15 July 2005 (UTC)[reply]

Good work! And I agree with you that the quotes should be over at wikiquotes... Maybe a new project should be started to transfer quotes from articles about people here to wikiquotes, since many articles about people have big numbers of quotes, often irrelevant to the rest of the content of the article. --Konstantin 11:10, 17 July 2005 (UTC)[reply]

Al Franken Show and Guests

Michael Medved once stated that he asked Franken why he's never been invited on The Al Franken Show and was told the show didn't have guests, yet I know numerous liberals have been guests on the show (Bill Moyers being one of the more prominent names I can think of). What's the real deal regarding guests on The Al Franken Show?

Cryptico 10 July 2005

Franken has interviewed a number of conservatives, too, so whatever the issue with Medved, it's not because of a blanket refusal to interview conservatives. -asx- 05:00, 11 July 2005 (UTC)[reply]

POV Push?

In my opinion, it is not necessary to say, "When the original goal failed to materialize and Bush was re-elected, Franken expressed his deep disappointment and signed on with Air America for another two years." It is more neutral and succinct to simply say, "When Bush was re-elected, Franken signed on with Air America for another two years." Franken's disappointment with the election results is already obvious and is irrelevent in this sentence. Is someone reveling in Franken's disappointment? Is that the reason for including it? To my mind, including it is akin to saying, "Ha! You LOST!" -asx- 05:18, 11 July 2005 (UTC)[reply]

Secondary education dispute

This article presently states that Franken is a 1969 graduate of The Blake School. Several external sources cite Fairfax High School as his alma mater, such as NNDB, fairfaxclassof61.com, and others. His profile on IMDb does not make mention of either, unfortunately. Hall Monitor 17:26, 19 July 2005 (UTC)[reply]

I can assure you, and I know this firsthand, that he did go to Blake. As far as I can tell Franken never lived in California. You can also see here: [[1]]. Blake was a rival school to mine, and I've personally talked to Al about it. MicahMN | Talk 17:03, 9 August 2005 (UTC)[reply]

Gloria Wise/AAR on Franken's page

I, and others, have removed a section that keeps seeming to come up on the Franken article detailing a scandal that Franken was not involved in at all. I don't even know how this is supposed to fit into the article, and keeping it in would almost be POV in that it implies that Franken did something wrong or was involved. That section belongs here: Gloria Wise/Air America Loan Controversy and not on Franken's page. MicahMN | Talk 17:09, 9 August 2005 (UTC)[reply]

Actually it is the removal of the RELEVANT story regarding the Boys and Girls Club and Air America that is a POV.

Al Franken is, for most people, the face of Air America. He has been the point man for this scandal, and addressed the media about it quite recently http://news.google.com/news?hl=en&hs=xf1&lr=&client=firefox-a&rls=org.mozilla%3Aen-US%3Aofficial&tab=wn&ie=ISO-8859-1&q=franken+air+america+crook&btnG=Search+News

He also did by far the most number of interviews HYPING Air America when they first launched.

The two most relevant people to Air America are it's founder and Franken...and at least one of them is a crook - this according to Franken.

Now, it may be a bit premature to make any harsh judgments about Franken regarding this imbroglio, but he does receive a salary from Air America and the monies originally paid to him came from their seed fund, some of which was taking food out of the mouths of orphans and widows.

No one is disputing that. They're all just trying to blame it on Evan Cohen.

And to suggest, that this is "a scandal that Franken was not involved in at all" is laughable.

It's like saying O'Reilly had nothing to do with the lawsuit Fox filed against Franken's book.

So, the only FAIR thing to do is either remove that section from O'Reilly's entry or include the Gloria Wise scandal in Franken's.

And that's what I propose.

Big Daddy 03:44, 2 September 2005 (UTC)[reply]

It would be POV, in my opinion, to include unsubstantiated accusations about Franken being involved in this scandal, or even implying it by making it a large part of this article. Franken did state that O'Reilly was the one pushing for Fox's lawsuit. If you can find someone noteworthy accusing Franken of being involved in the scandal or someone involved in the case stating that, then I think it would be more than fair to put it in the article. As it stands, there is nothing connecting him, and I think that it is more or less a POV attack on the man to imply association with a scandal he had nothing to do with. -- MicahMN | μ 04:27, 2 September 2005 (UTC)[reply]

" Franken did state that O'Reilly was the one pushing for Fox's lawsuit"

THAT is your justificaton??? Please.

I'm sorry but Al Franken is NOT a credible source of dispassionately objective information about Bill O'Reilly.

Except maybe in Wikipedia...

But, I'm not gonna fight you on this scandal. Smearing commentators is more the stock and trade of liberals (see Ann Coulter and Bill O'Reilly's articles for details.)

Sooner or later, more info will come out about Air America,, the Boys & Girls Club and Al Franken. I'm happy to wait for a more fuller unveiling of the truth... Big Daddy 14:04, 3 September 2005 (UTC)[reply]

USO sources

I'm wondering if there is a source to refute Franken's claim that Limbaugh and O'Reilly have never been on a USO tour to Iraq. An anonymous user said that Franken's statement was factually inaccurate, but I think there should be a source with such a claim. -- MicahMN | μ 02:42, 2 September 2005 (UTC)[reply]

Hmmm...Let me get this straight. In the Bill O'Reilly entry, O'Reilly is trashed by quotes from Al Franken.

And on the Al Franken entry, O'Reilly is...er...trashed by quotes from Al Franken!

I say we just get rid of the following paragraph. It's not funny in the least, even if it wasn't a lie and serves no purpose whatsoever except to take an unwarranted hit on two conservatives.

One of his more famous jokes goes: "Hey Bill O'Reilly and Rush Limbaugh have never been to Iraq or done a USO tour", to which he would respond, "Oh honey, thats not fair; they have no talent." Factually, however, this has proven to be false, both have been to Iraq and Afghanistan several times. Big Daddy 03:31, 2 September 2005 (UTC)[reply]

I took that STUPID, ridiculous and compltely unfunny cheap-shot-that-is-supposed-to-be-a-joke out.

Now, if I were a liberal editor, I could include some additional 'USO info' about Al Franken.

Like for example how Bill O'Reilly, Ann Coulter and many others have observed that he literally 'cries on cue' when discussing the USO. In fact, in the infamous CBC interview, Coulter predicts that he will cry and at what point he will begin doing so...and Franken was kind of enough to prove Ann prophetic!

But I'm not a liberal who, under the auspices of 'just wanting to present facts' slimes and denigrates people in their encyclopedic entry.

I'm a conservative. Big Daddy 14:44, 3 September 2005 (UTC)[reply]