As fallout continues over news that Senator Al Franken (D-Minnesota) will resign after multiple accusations of sexual misconduct, a nearly two-decade-old book by the “SNL” alum is making the rounds online in which the comedian essentially predicted the implosion of his future political career over a sex scandal.
The 1999 book “Why Not Me” was written long before Franken launched a political career, during a period when the idea that he would ever one day hold such high office would have been — comedic.
“Let me say here and now that I regret very deeply the harm that I’ve done both to people I care about and people I don’t really care about all that much,” a fictional President Franken wrote about a fictional sex scandal. “I am sorry. I apologize. It was wrong. What I did was wrong. I’m sorry. I am so, so sorry. Boy, am I sorry.”
The imagined scandal, set in the year 2001, is recounted in the style of a diary entry in the book, the publication of which ultimate forces “President Franken” to resign.
The Daily Beast’s Harry Siegel was the first to resurface the excerpt, who plowed through all 290 pages in less than 24 hours.
The goofy tome, far from one of the Franken classics, is written in three parts and chronicles the rise and unraveling of a Franken presidency.
“It began on a cold day in January, when Alan Stuart Franken took the oath of office and became the 44th President of the United States. It ended 144 tumultuous days later with the words: ‘Boy, am I sorry,’” reads an Amazon description.
“As scandal rocks the Administration, ‘Why Not Me?’ becomes a tragic American morality tale: of a man who dared to believe that anyone could be president — and paid the price for proving he was right.”
Before his stunning implosion in recent weeks, Franken had been mentioned as a possible candidate for the Democratic presidential nomination in 2020.