the new yorker

This week’s issue of The New Yorker features a long profile of Al Franken by John Colapinto. For those who closely observed the eight month post-election battle between Franken and Norm Coleman, the piece offers few revelations. But it provides an entertaining, detailed account of the extraordinary U.S. Senate contest — including the memorable cameo [...]

Not only has Illinois Gov. Rod Blagojevich stolen the political moment from Barack Obama, he’s taken a crowbar to the president-elect’s mantle as wordsmith-in-chief and orator for our times. Once Blago’s cussed, illegal schemes got taken down by the FBI and disseminated by the Justice Department, the nation took notice of a new literary lion rumbling from its midsection. Blagojevich’s words have also inspired Americans to take up their pens to compose a new musical (or fragment thereof) and a flattering Daily Beast quiz that compares lines from “The Sopranos,” a show that won six Emmys for the best writing on a television, to lines from the FBI affadavit.