Al Franken's Rerun Rove and Libby Execution Remark Draws Laughter From Lauer
Geoffrey Dicken's Blog, October 25, 2005

On Today, at 8:52am Al Franken was on to promote his new book The Truth and repeated his twisted joke about Rove and Libby needing execution. Franken's "joke," drew laughter from Matt Lauer and the rest of the Today show studio. The following is just a portion of this morning's interview:

Matt Lauer: "All right, Karl Rove and Scooter Libby what’s their future? What’s your prediction in terms of indictments? Yes or no?"

Franken: "Oh they, they’ll be indicted. I, I am absolutely sure and this is about, of course, the war in Iraq really. It’s about the justification for the war and smearing Joe Wilson by outing his wife who’s a CIA agent. George H.W. Bush, the President’s father, said, as, when he was head of the CIA, that outing a CIA agent is treason. I, I agree. So I think that Rove and Libby will be executed." Video available: Real or Windows Media Player

Lauer laughing along with others in the studio: "That aside. Given the fact it has a lot to do with the mood in this country and the, and the thought process in this country prior to the war in Iraq how much do you think the average American cares about this story right now? We had James Carville on this morning, said about a two on a scale of 1 to 10. Laura Ingraham said minus one. What do you think?"

Franken: "I think Laura Ingraham is an idiot."

Lauer chuckling: "Well you don’t have a lot of nice things about a lot of conservatives."

Franken: "Well no but minus, I mean people, I think..."

Lauer: "But how much do you think people care about it?"

Franken: "I think people care, I think people care that people close to the President and the Vice President are, are outing CIA agents and lying and lying before, I think this is, and, and when they get indicted and when people start looking at this it’s gonna be very, very big."

Earlier in the interview Franken drew laughs from in studio when he called the President "incompetent." Taking it from the top of the interview here is the conversation:
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- posted by ARYABHATT @ 9:53 am