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

That's it, Rush. The old fallback. Blame Clinton. That always works with your audience
when you're trying to make something up. (When I don't know something, I just tell a
joke about Gingrich having a mistress.)
Rush, I know you have a three-hour show every day that leaves precious little time for
bothering to know what you're talking about. So let me tell you how it happened. And let me
tell you how I found out: I called the people involved and asked them. Try it sometime.
On Saturday, after David Wellstone had returned from the crash site, he met with Jeff
Blodgett, Wellstone's campaign manager. David said that he and his brother wanted a small
service for their parents and sister. But both realized the need for a larger public memorial.
The family and staff had been deluged by condolence calls, impromptu prayer vigils, and
crowds at the makeshift "memorial wall" outside Wellstone campaign headquarters. So,
Rush, it was Paul's son David who first saw this as an opportunity. An opportunity to honor
the depth of feeling for his parents, his sister, and their friends.
They were under tremendous time constraints. It was now only eleven days before
November 5, and they felt it would have been unfair to Coleman to schedule the memorial
too close to the election. They settled on Tuesday, October 29. Blodgett knew that the campaign
staff was a wreck. So he approached Ann Mulholland, whom he had worked with before
she took time off to raise her three little kids, and asked her if she could give him three
or four days to help plan the memorial. Ann had just accepted a new job at a nonprofit, but
they agreed to let her start a little late. Ann told me what it was like when she went to work.
The staff was a mess. They had lost not just their boss, their cause that they had
been working for for months, years—but their best friends. They were all grieving. I
didn't want to make a noise. No one else was functioning. I took a cell phone to the
bathroom and called my husband, and told him, "I don't know how these people
are standing."
Anytime I'd sit down at a desk, someone would start crying and tell me, "That
was Mary's desk"—so I'd move, and someone would start crying. "That was Tom's
desk." You have to understand that Saturday, Sunday, Monday, and Tuesday,
these people were going to funerals.
Six people died. That was the overwhelming reality. Six people. Every one
equal. We asked each family to choose someone to do the eulogy. At no point did
it ever cross anyone's mind to read the speeches. The day before, the people from
the hearing impaired group asked, "Do you have any of the speeches?" I just