What have we learned from Al Franken’s TV ads? We’ve learned he doesn’t understand how building highways and hospitals in Iraq is as important to President Bush’s Mideast strategy as delivering bombs and bullets.

For a strong and moral nation, mercy and compassion are as much part of victory as military prowess. The best way to destroy an enemy is to make him your friend.

Franken doesn’t understand that although school construction can be a part of foreign policy, it is not a legitimate part of federal domestic action. We in Minnesota should not look to Washington to do what we can and should do for ourselves.

James Madison, a prominent contributor to the Constitution wrote, “I cannot undertake to lay my finger on that article of the Constitution which granted a right to Congress of expending, on objects of benevolence, the money of their constituents...” and “if Congress can do whatever in their discretion can be done by money, and will promote the general welfare, the government is no longer a limited one, possessing enumerated powers, but an indefinite one, subject to particular exceptions.”

Franken didn’t understand that taxes are paid where the liability is incurred. If you take bread from Bob’s Bakery and pay Pat’s Pastries, Bob still says you stole his bread. “It was an honest mistake” doesn’t satisfy Bob. Can we trust such ignorance to represent us?

Franken does understand dirty campaigning. His attempt to denigrate Norm Coleman’s judgment because he often agrees with the president are bad enough, but mud-slinging a disproved allegation of corruption and sliming on blatant innuendo are totally disgusting.