No, but wide attribution could lead to Franken repeating something that he thought was fact, because he was unaware of the retraction. He should have been aware of it, of course, and if he’d said that in one of his (rigorously fact-checked) books, you might have something. But as an off-the-cuff remark in a live interview? I’d give him a lot more latitude in that situation.
However, I’d really like to see Franken’s comment in full context. One area where Franken is going to find himself vulnerable is that he’s a comedian, and it is very easy to take the set-up to a joke and present it without the punchline, so that it sounds like he’s advocating something that he is, in fact, mocking. What did he say after that? Where was he going with the comment? My guess, being familiar with Franken’s humor and his politics, is that he was setting up a gag that would make it clear he was not, in fact, calling Schwartzenegger a Nazi.
I hope you’re right. The only thing demanding nearly as much evidence of a man saying he admired Hitler is a man saying that a man said that he admired Hitler. If you know what I mean.
At any rate, Franken should retract/clarify it now. It’s public knowledge on a public site. If he doesn’t know about it, then people who know him know about it. So, if he’s listening to people, either they’re not telling him or he doesn’t care. And if he isn’t listening to people, then he should. Nothing is more wingdacky than a renegade politician who doesn’t listen to people. cough BUSH cough
Yeah, I dig, and generally speaking, I agree. However…
I don’t necessarily agree with this. If Franken’s comment was taken out of context, clarifying what he said isn’t going to do any good, because the website isn’t going to tell us about that, either. And if this website (and places like it) are the only ones talking about it, then clarifying what he said now is only going to draw more attention to these character assassins and give them a wider platform for their other claims.
On the other hand, if Franken spoke in error, I’d be surprised to learn he hadn’t already apologized for it. (And I certainly wouldn’t trust this cite to tell us if he had.) The one time I’m aware of where Franken got something flatly wrong in one of his books, the first person to call him on it was… Al Franken, in his very next book.
