Politics is alluring.The intricate dance of what some call “the greatest game” attracts us. Sometimes it’s the methods the politically acute use to gain power. Sometimes it’s the issues politicians deal with — the great social, economic and military matters that occupy the residents of the hallowed halls of government.Whatever it is, we are drawn to those who can speak the language of politics fluently — especially when they use that language to great comedic effect.Political comedians like the now-ubiquitous Jon Stewart and Stephen Colbert routinely draw huge crowds and massive television audiences to their acute observations of politics.  Our political system — and the people who run it — brims with opportunities from satire, from gaffes and slip-ups to ridiculous proposals, to those rare, hilarious moments when a politician’s plans go wildly awry.Since the days when kings first stopped beheading dissenters, political satirists have made sometimes extravagant livings off pointing out the everyday absurdity of those in power.The practical benefits of political satirists — besides making us laugh — are the same as a free press. They use humor as a vehicle for holding the people who govern us accountable, and the laughs they earn along the way make the process accountable for the everyday citizen.But the problem arises when political satirists earn respectability they don’t deserve. It’s a common lament among media critics that such a huge number of people — especially young people — find their only source of news between The Daily Show and The Colbert Report. These fake news shows don’t stand alone by themselves – they are designed to elicit laughs, not to inform.The same goes for any other comedian. They may know their material, and the flaws and inconsistencies they ridicule may be valid. But no matter how effectively they tear down the political establishment, they aren’t necessarily qualified to make these types of decisions themselves.Ask almost any comedian who specializes in political humor — Jon Stewart and virtually all of their contemporaries have outright denied their own respectability as politicians. Louis Black, Emmy-winning political satirist has said, “Me?  Do you have any idea how bad a President I’d be? Seriously, you wouldn’t have leadership, you’d have a television show.”But it seems the error of mistaking satire and observation for genuinely good ideas about how to run the country has recently been made on a colossal scale.In the past election cycle, the Senate seat from Minnesota was hotly contested. Incumbent Harry Coleman found himself fighting a desperate battle – against a former cast member of Saturday Night Live.Al Franken, a political comedian and satirist, and author of observational books such as “Rush Limbaugh is a Big Fat Idiot and Other Observations,” managed to usurp the incumbent in an election so close it was determined in a recount, and was still uncertain as late as January. It now appears Franken will be Minnesota’s new senator.Franken could potentially prove to be a brilliant politician, who will write bills that lift us immediately from the current economic crisis.But so far, his only experience consists of sitting on the sidelines, pointing out flaws made by other people. He has no experience in navigating the tangled web that is Congress nor does he have any history of making decisions with real, national impacts. If the people of Minnesota honestly elected Franken based on his proposed policies and his platform, that’s fine.But if — as it seems is likely the case — Minnesota voters mistook clever humor for political acumen, then the danger of his selection ending in disaster seems frighteningly realistic.——Contact Matthew Albright at [email protected]