Franken-Lies-And-the-Lying-Liars-Who-Tell

like Playboy playmates," the BunnyRanch website proudly quotes the Reform Party governor
as saying. (He denies actually saying this, and I tend to believe him.)
Ventura had no problem with the BunnyRanch, but Kahn's speech was beyond the
pale. In fairness, Ventura never described any of the sex workers as being overly partisan.
Maybe he really was offended by the memorial and not just showboating the way he had
every other moment of his public life.
So some people were offended, and some people were moved. I thought the story was
over. The best summary of it all was Joe Klein's piece in The New Yorker.
The memorial service for Senator Paul Wellstone held last Tuesday evening in the
Williams arena, on the University of Minnesota campus, was overlong, excessively
partisan, unpretentious, emotional (without being maudlin), and, above all, egalitarian—in
sum, an accurate reflection of the man being memorialized.... There was
none of the glitz and few of the easy tears that have come to mark such public
events....
The emotions unleashed by his death—the tributes from even his staunchest
political opponents—are certainly a consequence of Wellstone's, and his family's,
bracing, un varnished humanity; but, one senses, there is also a more general
mourning for the politics of larger themes and for politicians willing to discuss
them. It is, in any case, stunning that the death of one man has occasioned the
only breath of life we've seen in this election year.
That was pretty much the way I saw it. (Though a lot less eloquently.) What I didn't realize
was that between the raucous crowd, Kahn's fiery speech, and the imprimatur of independent
outrage provided by Ventura's walkout, the memorial service had created a sort of perfect political
storm for Republican opportunists.
The morning after the memorial, I picked up the Minneapolis Star Tribune and turned
to the special section devoted to the event. It was titled "One Last Rally: Victims Remembered
with Cheers and Tears," with a heartbreaking picture of Paul and Sheila's granddaughter,
Cari, crying. There were two stories on the front page. One was about the event itself:
"Overflow Crowd Pays Tribute to Wellstone." The other was about GOP spin: "Republicans
Decry Service as Political." With the stories side by side, it was as if two different
events had taken place. The real one, and the lie one.
Vin Weber was framing the Republican story line. "This was NOT a memorial to Paul
Wellstone. This was a political event." Weber said that the event was a "complete, total, ab-