[speedgibson] Speed Gibson: Al, um, Franken

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Posted by Speed Gibson:
Al, um, Franken
http://speedgibson.powerblogs.com/posts/1188188976.shtml


   I did a year with Toastmasters, doing my ten speeches, earning my
   Competent Toastmaster pin. A key component of evaluating speeches is
   actually counting all of the ums, ers, and ahs.
   So, I appointed myself the "ah counter" watching U.S. Senate DFL
   hopeful Al Franken on Almanac this week. I counted 51, not to mention
   any number of broken sentences. His competitors Ciresi and Cohen were
   near flawless, but to be fair, they're seasoned attorneys.
   Franken isn't exactly light on his feet intellectually, which probably
   explains why he gets abusive when losing an argument. He can write
   well, he can deliver written material well, but several times on this
   appearance, Franken was clearly unable to think and/or present his
   thoughts coherently under fire.
   This in fact was how his radio program generally operated. He would
   begin the hour obviously reading something he or the staff wrote, and
   it sounded very professional. But once done, and once taking even the
   friendliest of callers, the stammering and wandering began to fill the
   rest of the hour.
   That's not to say Mr. Franken won't be the nominee. I think he won the
   "debate" tonight, and I think he'll be the DFL standard bearer. But
   he's going to have to get a lot better before taking on a verbal
   master like Senator Norm Coleman to have any chance of winning.