Saturday Night Live has been a very powerful teacher, it's producers, writers, and actors have a point of view. It is fair to say it has been more left than right, in fact, I can't remember any politically right character or position that has been presented on their air that hasn't been saturated in ridicule. From this array of talented actors and comedians comes one who is now United States Senator Al Franken. Franken's most memorable character from the program was Stewart Smalley, a kind of trans-sexual talk show host who was not in touch with either side of his gender. When people get their news from John Stewart and take Steven Colbert as a serious thinker, you have the pop-culture Neil Postman warned was coming in his classic book, Amusing Ourselves to Death. Franken has always been a walking cartoon, when he talked politics, you didn't know if you should laugh or cry. It is very hard to take him serious, I didn't think the people of Minnesota would elect him. They did elect Jesse Ventura, but next to Franken, Ventura is a genius, he is Churchill. Al Franken became a Senator because the people of Minnesota lost their discretion, they got caught up the the duel world of reality and fiction. They were watching a screen where cartoon and reality blended and phased in and out until it seemed normal. This is what Neil Postman was getting at, when you allow the entertainment culture to define reality, sometimes you get looney tunes.