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

in listen ing to him sing. About five minutes into his set, folks were walking around,
schmoozing, speaking loudly in order to be heard over the din. It must have been like playing
the lounge at a Holiday Inn in Phoenix, but worse.
As a comedian, I make a point of being polite to other performers, and so I listened to
and applauded each song, as people crisscrossed in front of me.
During the fourth or fifth number, I noticed Richard Perle, the former chair of the Defense
Policy Board, talking to my friend Jonathan Alter of Newsweek at the next table. The
New York Times had recently disclosed that Perle had been hired by Global Crossing to lobby
the Pentagon, which the Defense Policy Board advises. Global Crossing wanted the Pentagon
to allow a Hong Kong enterprise with close ties to the Chinese government to acquire the
bankrupt telecom company. Perle's fee: $125,000. Plus, a $600,000 bonus if the deal went
through. Conflict of interest? Yeah, kinda.
The LA Times found another icky one. As chair of the Defense Policy Board, Perle
had received a classified briefing on Iraq and North Korea. A few days later, Goldman Sachs
paid Perle to join a conference call with a select group of investors to tell them how to take
advantage of this information. Oddly enough, I knew about this sleazy little arrangement before
the Times broke it. A twenty-year-old TeamFranken member, who happens to be the
scion of a ridiculously wealthy family, had been invited to be on the call. My TeamFranken
member (let's call him "Horace Rockefeller") was sworn to secrecy, so I can't tell you what
Perle said. But let's put it this way-I wouldn't invest in any real estate investment trusts with
property along the Seoul subway line.
So screw Ray Charles! This was my chance to bother Richard Perle. I waited for a lull
in the conversation and jumped in. "Mr. Perle, Al Franken."
He nodded.
"Say, how do I get in on this gravy train?" I asked. "I feel like I've missed the boat on
this whole war."
"Invest in my fund," he said. I wasn't sure if he was serious. "I'll send you a portfolio."
Like an idiot, I didn't take him up on it. That would have been juicy reading. Instead, I asked
him about his threat to sue journalist Seymour Hersh, who had just exposed one of his shady
deals in The New Yorker, for libel. Perle had called Hersh, "the closest thing American journalism
has to a terrorist" and then threatened to sue him in Great Britain, where journalists
aren't protected by our silly First Amendment. Weeks had passed without Perle suing, and it