Al Franken

Now, after two very successful books of political satire, you've written an advice and self-help book, a guide to success. In this book you get in a few more licks at poor old Rush Limbaugh.

I talk about him a little in the chapter on weight, but I talk about him more in the chapter on envy.

You've never met, right?

I've never met the man.

Have you heard anything from him to indicate he gets the joke?

He got it. I don't think he thinks it's a joke. I understand that he did not like the book ["Rush Limbaugh Is a Big Fat Idiot and Other Observations"], and understandably so ... In years since, he's mentioned me here and there, and always not in a great way, but that's fine. But in ["Oh, The Things I Know!"] I talk about his hearing loss and how he actually didn't tell the people he was negotiating [his broadcasting contract] with that he was going deaf.

You make a joke out of it by coming to his defense.

Well, yeah, I express a lot of concern that this is fraud and it's the kind of fraud you go to prison for and I begged the people who would actually press charges against him not to. Because, I pointed out, the best defense against rape in prison is good hearing, ironically.

That was noble of you.

Yes.

Being that you're now in the advice business, the pope's called for all the American cardinals to come to Rome because of the sex abuse scandals. How would you advise him to deal with this?

I looked at Cardinal Law's statement and I think there was a key there where Cardinal Law said that they hadn't placed a high enough priority on protecting the children. So, if I were the pope I'd tell them to put that higher up.

A little higher up on the priority list?

Yeah, I think it was 9.

So you'd move it where?

I'd move it to 2 or 3. It's certainly gotta go above bingo.

Continuing with the subject of good and evil, Carolyn Risher, the mayor of Inglis, Fla., recently issued a proclamation banning Satan from her three-square-mile town. If you could ban Satan from a three-square-mile area, where would it be?

Are you asking this of everyone you talk to?

No, just you.

Three square miles, or circular? Can it be a radius of three miles?

It can be a radius. We can play fast and loose with this.

OK. Um, boy, that's a tough one.

It is a tough one, and you only get to pick one area to ban Satan from.

OK, hold on. Um, Battle Creek, Mich.

Why there?

I eat a lot of cereal.

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