In The Blogs

Al Franken's Perry Mason Moment

Hey, it's Laura. Instead of doing a MoJo Mix tonight, I thought you might like this video of Al Franken's first funny as senator. His Perry Mason bit (see below) comes from Wednesday's Sotomayor hearings, (which you can watch with livestreaming MoJo commentary all week on our All Things Sotomayor blog/video extravaganza page). Worth a watch:

And if you missed the hearings Monday, Tuesday, or Wednesday, check out Stephanie Mencimer's wrap-ups: Pride and Prejudice, Where Did Sotomayor's Empathy Go?, and Sotomayor Slips Up. [For Thursday's live analysis, there's our video and live blog here, or follow Stephanie's and David Corn's coverage on Twitter.]

Laura McClure hosts podcasts, writes the MoJo Mix, and is the new media editor at Mother Jones. Read her investigative feature on lifehacking gurus in the latest issue of Mother Jones.

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Raymond Burr story

I recall that someone once confronted Raymond Burr about Perry Mason winning every case. His answer was "You see only the cases he has on Wednesday."

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Perry loses!

The one case that Mason "lost" went something like this: He was defending "John Smith," and the prosecution had a lot of evidence against "John Smith." But his client was really "William Brown." John Smith was the murderer, so the cops had the right name, but the wrong man. (I don't remember, however, the origin of the confusion about names.)

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Close, but it's a trick episode.

Actually that is the case of the terrified typist, where Perry Mason defended "William Brown" who pretended to be "John Smith" who was actually guilty and against who the policy had irrefutable evidence. But Perry Mason found the real and innocent "John Smith" so that he could force a re-trail based on the identity confusion and dump "William Brown" on another lawyer.

So he did defend a guilty person in that story, but didn't actually lose the case.

This is supposedly the actual episode: http://www.answers.com/topic/perry-mason-the-case-of-the-deadly-verdict-...

MacGruber

You know what's really

You know what's really funny? 25% of the Minnesota precincts had more ballots cast than eligible voters.

Franken is yukking it up indeed.

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Mind to back that up?

You have any evidence for that, MacGruber, or are you just a bit under the weather toady?

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Can you be both a comedian

Can you be both a comedian and a pompous ass?

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You know what's really

You know what's really annoying? Making shit up and posting it on the Internet as if it were true.

Laura McClure

Luther: he's a comedian and

Luther: Franken's a comedian and pompous sure, but he's also a hell of a lot of fun to interview..when I talked to him on his cell for Salon.com, he put me the through the airport baggage machine so I could tell him what it sounded like. Read and see: http://dir.salon.com/story/news/feature/2003/08/27/franken/index.html

New Media Editor, Mother Jones
http://www.motherjones.com/authors/laura-mcclure

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Minny So Ta, Your new

Minny So Ta,

Your new Senator reflects well on the voters of your state (NOT!).

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