Like most of us, Sen. Al Franken (D-MN) is concerned about the White House's lack of leadership on healthcare reform. Frankly, I'm irate and if Al got mad, that'd be fine by me. Sam Stein of Huffington Post wrote this fact-based upon post based upon anonymous sources:
Shortly after Barack Obama addressed a Senate Democratic caucus meeting and urged them to push health care reform forward, one of the chamber's most progressive members took the president's closest adviser aside and asked him why the White House wasn't doing more to help.
Sens. Al Franken (D-Minn.) put pointed health-care-related questions to senior adviser David Axelrod following Obama's speech, multiple sources tell the Huffington Post. He was echoed by Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-V.T.) The gist of their concern was that the administration has not shown enough leadership to get legislation passed through Congress in the wake of the party's defeat in the Massachusetts Senate election. Franken insisted that "he really needed to know if the White House was going to lead," according to one Democratic aide.
Okay, this sound reasonable. Al's concerned, that's good. He stated those concerns to Axelrod ... all good.
But then Politico jumps into it with this breathless headline:
Al Franken lays into David Axelrod over health care bill
Being good regurgitators of Republican talking points, Manu Raju and Andy Barr (no relation to the Good Andy Barr who worked for Franken) push the "Angry Al" meme that all Republicans love to push.
Here are the breathless details from their anonymous sources (... maybe just taken from Sam Stein?):
Sen. Al Franken ripped into White House senior adviser David Axelrod this week during a tense, closed-door session with Senate Democrats.
Five sources who were in the room tell POLITICO that Franken criticized Axelrod for the administration's failure to provide clarity or direction on health care and the other big bills it wants Congress to enact.
The sources said Franken was the most outspoken senator in the meeting, which followed President Barack Obama's question-and-answer session with Senate Democrats at the Newseum on Wednesday. But they also said the Minnesotan wasn't the only angry Democrat in the room.
"There was a lot of frustration in there," said a Democratic senator who declined to be identified.
They use words and phrases like "ripped into", "tense", "angry", "most outspoken", "appeared to trigger Franken's anger" to describe Franken.
Politico already has low journalistic standards, but the last three paragraphs of the post really shows what kind Republican stenographers Raju and Barr truly are:
Franken - a comedian turned liberal talk show host - vowed to keep a relatively low profile when he arrived in the Senate over the summer after a protracted legal battle with former GOP Sen. Norm Coleman. But he has developed a reputation among his colleagues as one of the more aggressive personalities on the Hill.
Last November, after Tennessee Republican Sens. Bob Corker and Lamar Alexander authored an op-ed in a local paper defending their opposition to a Franken amendment, Franken confronted both men on the floor - and grew particularly irritated with Corker.
He lashed out at Corker and a staff member in a follow-up meeting about the matter, several people said. Franken also clashed with South Dakota Sen. John Thune, No. 4 in GOP leadership, last month in a scathing speech during the health care debate, and staffers have reported other run-ins. |
