"When A Nation Loses Its Funny Man, A Part Of Its Heart Is Ripped Out Forever"

By Baxter

Okay, so all our caterwauling was for naught, and Senator Al Franken will resign his Senate seat in the next few weeks. And it looks like America will get another female Democratic Senator.

So maybe life could be worse? We were surprisingly reassured by Franken's speech today, which was intelligent and — in weird circumstances — uplifting. Falling on his sword has restored his credibility, and we're pleased to know that he isn't going away.

Now it's time to tell a tiny Al Franken story. When we cats met him at a fundraiser in 2008, we made a point of telling him how much we liked his short-lived TV series "Lateline" — especially the Buddy Hackett episode. (You can watch the meaty bits of it above.)

We were looking forward to an interesting conversation with the candidate about how, thanks to the sorry state of modern media, a celebrity story will always pre-empt more serious news. But instead, Al immediately launched, sotto voce, into a dirty Hackett joke that dated from Buddy's days in the Catskills. We don't remember it exactly, but it had something to do with testicles.

Kind of a disappointment, that. But it apparently was something that a comedian would do.

We guess that's why we can pretty easily picture Al Franken doing the things he did that, today, drove him from the Senate. It's probably unfair, and it's sad, but the Democrats' slate is now clean — until the next one comes along. We cats HISS and PURR at the same time.

(P.S. This "Lateline" episode is still fresh and funny, even though Buddy Hackett did leave us — for real — on June 30, 2003. But do check out the name of the fictional hospital that the "Lateline" Buddy was admitted to back in 1998.)