By Bonnie Washuk,Staff Writer
Al Franken tosses barbs at Republicans during campus appearance.

LEWISTON – Al Franken, the host of Air America Radio and author of “Rush Limbaugh is a Big Fat Idiot,” told a Bates College capacity audience Saturday night he’s sometimes referred to someone who does the same thing Rush Limbaugh, except from the left.

He disagrees.

“I’m not the mirror image of Rush,” said Franken, wearing a jacket and tie, jeans and sneakers. The former Saturday Night Live star took to radio last year, saying he would tell the truth he doesn’t believe the public gets from Republicans.

Franken offered examples, including that Republicans say terrible things will happen if the minimum wage is increased.

Going into a voice imitating Rush Limbaugh, Franken said Limbaugh said on the air that 75 percent of all Americans earning minimum wage are teenagers in their first job.

Franken wanted to find out if that were true. He asked one of his researchers to look it up. “My researcher went to something called, ‘the Bureau of Labor Statistics,’ and found out that 60.1 percent of Americans on minimum wage are 20 and above.”

Franken asked: Where did Limbaugh get the statistic that 75 percent of all Americans on minimum wage are teenagers?

“He clearly got it directly from his butt,” he said as the audience laughed and applauded. “He pulled it out of his butt. It went out of his mouth into the microphone, over the airwaves, into the brains of ditto heads who believe him.”

The difference between Rush Limbaugh and the Al Franken Show is, “We get our labor statistics from the Bureau of Labor statistics. He gets his labor statistics from the Bureau of Rush’s butt. They do this. They just lie! And they lie repeatedly.”

Iraq is another way Republicans are mishandling the country, he said.

Franken has done two USO tours in Iraq. He’s doing a third in December. “My wife says, ‘How come Bill O’Reilly never does that?’ I said, ‘Honey, that’s not fair. He has no talent.”

When performing for soldiers, Franken said he sticks to Army jokes like: “I’ve had five MREs (meals ready to eat). None of them have an exit strategy.”

Performing for the troops is a great, fun, moving experience. But seeing the soldiers there “makes me furious. We have these great men over there. They’ve been failed by our leadership.”

Since Hurricane Katrina, more people are looking back on the Bush administration and Iraq ,”and they’re seeing that Iraq has been run just like Katrina. There are Michael Brown’s all over Iraq. And this Congress won’t do anything about.” Maine Sen. Susan Collins chairs a committee “that should be looking into this, and she ain’t doing it,” Franken said.

There’s $8.8 billion unaccounted for that was to reconstruct Iraq, he said. Every cent that didn’t get spend rebuilding Iraq, restoring water and electricity, alienated the people of Iraq and fueled insurgency, he said.

Investigations are needed to how Katrina and Iraq were handled. They need to be independent, “because you don’t get the truth from these Republicans.”

More applause.

Franken also spoke against Maine’s Nov. 8 referendum that seeks to overturn a law making housing, credit, employment and education discrimination because of sexual orientation illegal. He spoke of his father, who believed that people “should be just, and good.” Sharing a story from his Harvard College days, Franken encouraged Bates students to read.

Franken also poked fun at right-wing politicians who say liberals hurt family values.

“I’d like to say to Newt Gingrich: ‘Don’t you want for gay couples what you’ve had with your first wife, and your second wife, and your third wife. That bond?”

After performing at Bates, he left to appear later in the evening at Bowdoin College. Today he and his wife, Maine native Franni Franken, are celebrating their 30th wedding anniversary in Portland.

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