From a reader:

Mr. Goldberg – You’re going to get a lot of snippy emails about how Cheney shoots his friends rather than comforts them, but that’s too easy. I’m writing just to make the simple point that you make a pretty quick jump from Franken telling a story about his mother and Wellstone to a claim that he’ll be exploiting their deaths in his campaign. That’s a bit of a leap coming from one story – people use personal anecdotes about difficult stages in their lives all the time. Bush isn’t exploiting Christ’s death when he talks about being born again; Bobby Kennedy wasn’t exploiting his brother’s death when he made a speech after MLK’s assassination saying his own family had experienced gun violence. The jab at Cheney was probably unnecessary and maybe even poor taste (although I think you exaggerate that a bit), but it doesn’t make the story exploitative. It’s a serious charge when talking about someone’s mother. It’s your blog, so obviously you can say anything you want, but I think criticism of his jab at Cheney would have sufficed.

Me: There are some fair objections here. However, while I could and should have been more clear, I wasn’t basing the charge of exploiting Wellstone’s death solely on his announcement. Almost all the coverage of that race I’ve seen makes it clear that Wellstone’s ghost hangs over the campaign. Go over to Google News and type in Wellstone and Franken and you’ll get a taste of it. As for exploiting his mother’s death, that criticism’s on firmer ground. But, Franken did mention how he tells that story over and over again, and he was using it in his election announcement. What offended me was that he basically was telling this sincere and compelling story about some of the most terrible and emotional events of his life and he traded in those chips, as it were, for a cheap hit on Dick Cheney who isn’t exactly relevant to the race, and for all I or Franken knows is capable of human empathy for grieving friends. It was so tawdry. I didn’t mind him mentioning his mother or even telling the story. It was the payoff he cashed it in for that grossed me out — and reminded me that Al Franken must be Al Franken.

I think that’s all I have to say on the subject.