Lies and the Lying Liars Who Tell Them: A Fair and Balanced Look at the Right
by AL FRANKEN
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Book Summary Information
Author: AL FRANKENEdition: Audio Cassette
Format: Audiobook, Unabridged
Published: 2003-09
ISBN: 1565117964
Publisher: Highbridge Audio
Book Reviews of Lies and the Lying Liars Who Tell Them: A Fair and Balanced Look at the Right
Book Review: To Those Wondering About Franken's Credibility
Summary: 4 Stars
Where to begin, where to begin...
His researchers were Harvard grad students, trained in accurate citation for writing scholarly theses, not "a bunch of teenagers" as one reviewer claimed.
Regarding his sources: The media may ignore important events and realities, make false connections and ignore obviously true ones, and still be a reasonably reliable source for basic checkable facts. Of course there's media and then there's media. Fox News with an owner who repeatedly sends out memos saying he wants his "reporters" to promote a certain viewpoint and regularly fires employees who report inconvenient contradictory info, cannot be relied on at all, whereas national papers that are under constant scrutiny, and publish opposing letters-to-the-editor and retractions when they are in factual error, such as The Washington Post, The LA Times, and The NY Times, can be considered reliable sources of those facts they choose to print.
As to believing Al got conservatives to admit they lie, I have the advantage of having listened to hours of the Al Franken Show. I've heard him call a conservative politician, cite the person's offending remark, give his own (Franken's) source for contradictory information, ask where the other person got their info, and not back down to the evasions offered until the liar admits he has nothing to substantiate the (now revealed) lie. The person doesn't, of course, use the word "lie", but they admit that what they said contradicts verifiable truth. This is what Franken accurately reports as admitting to a lie. And his celebrity and the radio platform he had while writing the book got his phone calls answered surprisingly frequently. So there is no reason to doubt that he did the same thing a number of times off the air. That's why we use journalists and commentators for information; they can get to sources who couldn't possibly speak with all of us individually, and go to places we can't, to ask folks there for firsthand accounts. Franken went to wartime Iraq 4 times.
A little judicious Googling for corroboration of bothersome assertions, starting by using the citations in the back of the book (like transcripts of expert testimony, e.g.), might help ease a skeptical reader's mind. There is no lazy way to determine who does their best to check their facts with either experts in the field or credible news organizations, such as Reuters News Service. Spot-checking Franken shows him to be consistently accurate.
For those who still, even after all evidence supports Franken, find believing him rather than O'Reilly or Coulter, painful, I recommend "Blinded by the Right: The Conscience of an Ex-Conservative" by David Brock to help you.
BTW, refuting one reviewer's written distortion of "Franken's Team", as I did at the top of this review, is a good example of the sort of thing Al Franken does in his book. He goes back to the source for the correct info, and debunks a smear. (But he's a lot funnier doing it.) To quote the late Senator Moynihan, "Everyone is entitled to their own opinions, but they are not entitled to their own facts."
(I witheld one star because I would have preferred the book to be a little less personalized. Just my taste.)
Summary of Lies and the Lying Liars Who Tell Them: A Fair and Balanced Look at the Right
Having previously dissected the factual inaccuracies of a single bellicose talk show host in Rush Limbaugh Is a Big Fat Idiot, Al Franken takes his fight to a larger foe: President George W. Bush, the Bush Administration, Ann Coulter, Bill O'Reilly, and scores of other conservatives whom, he says, are playing loose with the facts. It's a lot of ground to cover, as evidenced by the 43 chapters in Lies and the Lying Liars Who Tell Them, but the results are often entertaining and insightful. Franken occupies a unique place in the modern political dialogue as perhaps the media's only comedy writer and performer who is also a Harvard fellow as well as a liberal political commentator. This unique and vaguely lonely position lends a charming quixotic quality to adventures such as a tense encounter with the Fox News staff at the National Press Club, a challenge to fisticuffs with National Review Editor Rich Lowry, and an oddly sweet admissions visit to ultra-conservative Bob Jones University (with a young research assistant posing as his son when Franken's real-life son refuses to participate in the charade). Less useful are comic book dramatizations of "Supply Side Jesus" and a fictitious Vietnam War story featuring the numerous righties who, Franken intimates, improperly avoided service. And Franken's criticisms of conservative talk show hosts Sean Hannity, O'Reilly, and columnist Coulter, while admirable in their attention to detail, fail to shed much new light on people who have built careers on broad arguments and relentless self-aggrandizement. But Franken is at his best, and most compellingly readable, when he backs off the wackiness and the personal grudges and writes about more personal matters such as the political circus surrounding the memorial service of the late Senator Paul Wellstone. But even on these more serious topics, Franken's wit is still present and, in fact, grows sharper. In a time when much political discourse is composed of rage and shouting, it's refreshing that Al Franken is able to shout in a witty manner. --John MoeThis witty, scrupulously researched and expertly delivered audio production accomplishes what few nonfiction audio books manage to do-it realizes the full potential of the format. Even those who have already read Franken's book should take the time to listen to this superb audio adaptation, which is enhanced by Franken's impeccable sense of comic timing, eerily precise impersonations and inclusion of source materials. In the most compelling section, for example, Franken juxtaposes two revealing clips to illustrate his view that the late Senator Paul Wellstone's memorial was "cynically distorted for partisan political advantage" not by the Democrats, but by the Republicans. The first clip is from Rush Limbaugh's radio show, where he proclaims in a heavy, lugubrious voice, "The Democrats wrenched Wellstone's soul right out of the grave, assumed it for themselves and then used it for their own blatant, selfish political ambitions.... Show me where the grief was!" Franken follows this with an excerpt from the memorial-which will bring tears to the eyes of any listener, partisan or non-in which David McLaughlin pays tribute to his younger brother, Will, who was Wellstone's driver, bodyguard, adviser and "the one who kept Paul going." By turns sad, funny and serious (but always satirical), this audio book has all the entertainment value of fiction (and even a one-act play called The Waitress and The Lawyer based on one of President Bush's radio addresses), but the issues Franken raises will stay with listeners long after their laughter has died down.
"Al Franken, ""one of our savviest satirists"" (People), takes on the issues, the politicians, and the pundits in one of the most anticipated books of the year. For the first time since his own classic Rush Limbaugh Is a Big Fat Idiot and Other Observations, Al Franken trains his subversive wit directly on the contemporary political scene. Now, the ""master of political humor"" (Washington Times) destroys the myth of liberal bias in the media, and exposes how the Right shamelessly tries to deceive the rest of us. No one is spared as Al uses the Right's own words against them. Not the Bush administration and their rhetorical hypocrisy. Not Ann Coulter and her specious screeds. Not the new generation of talk-radio hosts, and not Bill O'Reilly, Roger Ailes, and the entire Fox network. This is the book Al Franken fans have been waiting for (and his foes have been dreading). Timely, provocative, unfailingly honest, and always funny, Lies is sure to become the most talked about book of political humor in 2003 and beyond."
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