Chris Jones, an arts reporter for the Chicago Tribune (registration required), writes the following about Air America Radio headliner Al Franken and his new place in the liberal talk circuit:

Franken flows from the Second City-style world of sketch comedy. It's a scripted, fast-paced place that needs oodles of preparation and globs of material. That won't entirely work in Franken's new life; he now will have to go through material like butter and riff from the top of his head. Perhaps this conflict explains why he told the same anti-Donald Rumsfeld gag twice on Saturday night. Ironically, it involved making the statement that Rumsfeld was inept.

Franken, Jones explains, has worked to re-invent himself from the writer-mensch-funny man from "Saturday Night Live" into the left's answer to Rush Limbaugh and Bill O'Reilly. The result, it appears, is like a fresh water fish trying to make it in a salt water lake.