Franken's war stance has edged to the left

DFL U.S. Senate candidate Al Franken has become known for his blistering criticism of the Iraq war. What is less well known is that the satirist-turned-candidate is a relatively recent convert to the conviction that the U.S. should immediately pull out of Iraq.

Among the DFL loyalists who will bestow the party endorsement next year to challenge Republican Sen. Norm Coleman, no issue stirs passion like the war in Iraq. Democratic candidates compete in the vehemence with which they decry President Bush's Iraq policy, and they boast of how early and consistently they have denounced it.

Franken's leading opponent for the DFL endorsement, lawyer Mike Ciresi, touts his continuous opposition on Iraq. And of late he's used debate appearances to criticize Franken's onetime support for the war, steadily escalating the intensity of his attacks.

Trailing Franken in fundraising and name recognition, Ciresi has seized on Franken's early support for the war as an issue that he says distinguishes the two front-running DFLers.

"Al, you supported the war at the outset," Ciresi said in a Sept. 30 debate before the DFL Progressive Caucus. "I want a United States senator who doesn't act because he or she is afraid, but despite that fear, with courage and conviction."

Franken says he now wholeheartedly endorses U.S. withdrawal, telling an audience at a September debate that "I am for starting to leave now."

But in an interview, Ciresi said Franken's late arrival at that position could take the sting out of a line of attack Democrats need -- the argument that Coleman's recent shift from war hawk to ambivalent war skeptic comes too late to excuse his earlier wholehearted support for the war.

Franken bristles at any comparison to Coleman, saying sound-bite barbs don't tell the whole story on as nuanced and complex a topic as Iraq.

The real trouble, Franken said in an interview with the Star Tribune, is, "I've been such an outspoken critic of the war over the last three years, a lot of people have been surprised that I wrestled with this."

Fear clouded skepticism

Like many others, Franken was shaken by Sept. 11, 2001. And for all his acid-tongued commentary about the Bush administration, he says he found himself unwilling to believe the president would "mislead this country into war."I believed the president. I believed [former Secretary of State] Colin Powell," he said.

In his 2003 book, "Lies and the Lying Liars Who Tell Them," Franken wrote that "I had allowed fear to cloud my normally robust skepticism regarding the veracity of the Bush administration."

Since then, Franken said he came to believe that the war was being prosecuted "incompetently and corruptly."

In a May 2006 radio interview, Franken said, "I think I would have voted for the use of force because I would have believed Colin Powell."

Asked during his interview with the Star Tribune why he would have done so, given that his friend and mentor Sen. Paul Wellstone cast one of the few votes against it, Franken said: "I wrestled with it and I didn't 100 percent say we gotta go to war. I would have voted for the resolution to get the weapons inspectors in ... [T]he president said it was a vote for peace, not a vote for war."

The resolution passed the Senate in October 2002.

While in Iraq to entertain troops, Franken said he was struck by their bravery and gained an understanding of what could happen in the wake of a "precipitous" withdrawal.

"I visited guys ... who were dying," he said. "I know what their sacrifice is ... and how they've served with incredible dedication. So this is a very difficult thing, and I know it's difficult for people who have different opinions, too."

Ambivalence continued in '06

As late as last year, Franken opposed troop withdrawal, telling Playboy magazine in a January 2006 interview that "I'm not for pulling out of Iraq right now."

Later that month, Franken said on his Air America radio show that he feared a breakdown of what little civil order remained in Iraq if U.S. troops left. But he said in the interview that facts on the ground have changed so greatly that he now believes the U.S. should leave as soon as feasible.

"I'm for a timeline," he said. While he does not specify a date, he says that "I want us to get out of there and get out as quickly as possible but as responsibly as possible."

So what has changed from the time when Franken feared a pullout would result in chaos?

He said that by 2006 he was "leaning toward a phased withdrawal" because the Iraqi government was "not only not working toward reconciliation, it's working against reconciliation."

But Franken's ambivalence continued in mid-2006. In a June 16, 2006 Air America show, he said, "I'm not sure we should set a timetable myself. I may actually, oddly enough, agree with Bush here."

Ciresi's problem

Ciresi has his own vulnerability on Iraq. While he says he has opposed the war from the beginning, he has no record of publicly doing so until he became a candidate this year. Nevertheless, he said he plans to continue putting Franken on the spot.

"You can't, as a United States senator, just sit there and wring your hands for five years and say, 'This could happen, that could happen. I don't know what to do,'" Ciresi said. "He has said he let fear cloud his judgment. To my mind, that calls into question his qualifications to be a U.S. senator."

Franken said the characterization of him as a waffler is unfair. He has, he says, spent years taking on the Republican right -- so vigorously that Republicans are painting him as the "angry" candidate.

"Ironically, I'm the one going to Iraq every Christmas, I'm talking to the troops, trying to find out as much as I can," Franken said.

To take what was for him "an evolving discussion," he said, and single out lines "without looking into the context of it is to me sort of missing the forest for the trees."

Patricia Lopez • 651-222-1288

Patricia Lopez • plopez@startribune.com