Franken & Krugman tonite in NYC.

[milkyway]

Al Franken & Paul Krugman are touring to promote the paperback edition of their books. They were at Barnes & Noble Union Square at 7 pm. B&N gave out wristbands beginning at 5 pm. This was an event that was barely publicized--I just happened to be going to the store this afternoon and saw the sign in the window. I counted seating for approx. 450, with hundreds more standing deep into the store.

They spoke for about an hour, including questions, then autographed copies of their books. They were great to listen to and, needless to say, very well received by the latte-drinking, Volvo-driving New York crowd. Much of what they discussed is not new if you have read their books, listened to Air America, and frequent DU, but it was still entertaining and a lot of interesting stuff. Here's some quotes I scribbled down. They should be fairly accurate.

Franken:

"Rush Limbaugh said on his show that 75% of people on minimum wage are teenagers in their first job...We checked with the Bureau of Labor Statistics. 61.1% were 20 years or older...Rush gets his statistics from his butt and it goes straight out his mouth."

After speaking about Brit Hume's totally misleading pronouncement last year that more people were murdered in California than U.S. soldiers are killed in Iraq, Franken said, "These guys are lying assholes."

Al spoke about bush's misstatement of today. He said McClellan should stop trying to cover up for the misstatements and just say, "There's more to being President than being articulate, intelligent, and knowledgeable." He then did a very funny bit as an elderly Jewish Press Secretary for bush.

Krugman:

"The bush White House broke the law by delaying the announcement of the budget deficit of $445 billion until after the Democratic Convention."

Krugman said that he told his Mom that he was going on a book tour to NYC and DC. She was worried because they were mentioned in the terror alerts Sunday. Krugman said, "I don't believe the terror alert."

Krugman talked about the threats and pressure he gets from wingnuts and the bush administration. He talked about how he hated having to spend an hour yelling with Bill O'Reilly on television. Speaking of his work and the bush administration, he then said, "The reason I'm willing to do this is these people really, really scare me."

"What really scares me is I don't think they believe in democracy."

"I was originally skeptical about the Center for American Progress, but they're terrific."

"The first few times you encounter that buzzsaw (rightwing intimidation of the media), it's pretty scary. A lot of people don't get past the first few times."

Krugman writes his own headlines. Months ago he titled a column "Hack the Vote," and it's been stolen many times since (he said with a smile).

"There is about a 1 in 4 chance that we're going to have an election result that most of the world won't believe."

"If you report correctly bush's mangled syntax, you get in a lot of trouble. If you report that Al Gore says he invented the Internet, which he did not say, then nothing happens to you."

[milkyway]

1. a humble kick

[Doomsayer13]

2. proud Krugmaniac here

he's the man

[Cleita]

3. Another kick.

Thanks for the post.

[milkyway]

4. a morning kick.