From Michael Kinsley:
The character called Al Franken would occasionally say things that a Senate candidate named Al Franken would not. Nor would the Senate candidate Al Franken necessarily want every word he uttered when brainstorming with other writers on S.N.L. to become public. Franken’s opponent in his first Senate campaign, in 2008, tried to make an issue of all this—thinking, or at least hoping, that the clean-living people of Minnesota might find the whole business a bit postmodern.
It almost worked. Franken had to go through a recount and a state Supreme Court battle before taking his seat several months late. He was comfortably re-elected in 2014.
This is Al Franken’s moment. Four years from now, he’ll be 69, younger than Trump or Hillary during the 2016 campaign. Four years after that, and he’ll be too old. As recently as, say, six months ago, I would have said that, however much I might admire Al Franken, the idea of a comedian (a comedian on purpose) as president was beneath the dignity of the United States. But we have learned more recently that nothing is beneath the dignity of the United States.
Senator Franken is a joke.
President Franken is a really bad joke.