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April 7, 2004
Franken Suplexes Hannity (and Bush)

Al Franken rocks. This piece alone is an amazing contribution to our debate this year. The blogs are great for keeping up with every event 5 seconds after it happens, but this is a great list that we should all memorize. These are going to be -- already are -- some of the attacks the Republicans use on John Kerry all year and I for one want to be able to clearly and precisely debunk their talking points, one by one, as Franken does.

It begins with Hannity's screed:


Here's a guy that supported gay marriage, now against it.

Here's a guy that by my count has had six separate different unique positions on the war on Iraq.

Here's a guy that voted for the $87 billion to fund the war before he voted against it.

Here's a guy that was for the Patriot Act. Now against it.

No Child Left Behind, for it, now against it.

Here's a guy that supported -- was against the death penalty for terrorists who kill Americans. Now he's for it.

The only thing he seems consistent on is that, throughout the 19 years he was in the Senate, he voted to raise taxes consistently 350 times.

What does that tell us about a man that has no core values or principles?

http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,115357,00.html

Al takes apart the first one, I'll let you go read the rest. Great stuff.

Here's a guy that supported gay marriage, now against it.

Franken: This is a lie. Kerry's position has always been consistent on this. I disagree with him, but Kerry has always been against gay marriage. He is for civil unions. What Hannity is doing here is taking Kerry's vote against the 1996 Defense of Marriage Act and deliberately misrepresenting it as a declaration in favor of gay marriage. But let me read you what Kerry said on the floor of the Senate about that vote.

"I will vote against this bill, though I am not for same-sex marriage, because I believe that this debate is fundamentally ugly, and it is fundamentally political, and it is fundamentally flawed. The results of this bill will not be to preserve anything, but will serve to attack a group of people out of various motives and rationales, and certainly out of a lack of understanding and a lack of tolerance, and will only serve the purposes of the political season."

And on that, I totally agree with him. So, for the record: Kerry has been totally consistent on this. He has never flip-flopped. Sean Hannity is lying, and he knows it.

Next.

http://64.94.245.159/blog_commento.asp?blog_id=15&month=4&year=2004

Notice how Hannity's tirade is just that, a string of completely unsupported accusations with no offering of evidence. Franken's response, on the other hand, is documented and supported with links and quotes from actual, gasp, sources.

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