Already under fire for a provocative piece he wrote for Playboy in 2000, Democratic Senate candidate Al Franken finds himself again under attack.
Two Republican state lawmakers in Minnesota Monday released a list of jokes and writings by Franken that they contend demeaned women, the St. Paul Pioneer Press reported.
"These are not jokes made by a teenage boy in the locker room with his friends," wrote state Rep. Laura Brod and state Sen. Betsy Wergin in a letter to their colleagues.
"These are jokes made by an adult man who has made his living this way, and only now, as a candidate for the Senate, wishes to be taken seriously," they wrote.
Rep. Betty McCollum, D-Minn., has called the Playboy piece, headlined "Porn-O-Rama," vulgar and sexist.
Franken's campaign has said the material was meant to be satire. Campaign spokeswoman Jess McIntosh reiterated that position.
"Al knows the difference between what a satirist says and what a senator does,'' she said. "They're different jobs."
In their letter, Brod and Wergin highlight eight other examples of Franken's words, which they argue belittled Afghan women, joked about killing baby girls and lesbians, and made sexual references to former Attorney General Janet Reno.
Franken and professor Jack Nelson-Pallmeyer are seeking their party's backing this weekend to run against Republican Sen. Norm Coleman.
This article appeared in the Saturday, June 7, 2008 edition of National Journal Daily.
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