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: Hardcover
Audio: English (Published)
Format: Bargain Price
Published: 2003-08-21
ISBN: N/A
Number of pages: 400
Publisher: Dutton Adult
Book Reviews of Lies and the Lying Liars Who Tell Them: A Fair and Balanced Look at the Right
Book Review: Poor Effort by 15 Supposedly High-Powered Individuals
Summary: 2 Stars
I bought & read this book to see what a prominent leftist had to say in response to the unbelievably damning indictments of the left that resulted from the public release of information from the Venona Project. Conservative writers such as Ann Coulter and Mona Charon included material on the Venona Project in two of their books, and I expected to see some sort of a contrary comment. I was disappointed, and forget about Franken's index: there isn't any. And if you discount the New York Times and other left-leaning newspapers and magazines, there's not much remaining of Franken's sources. I'm reminded of the old adage; "If you only talk with those who hold the same opinion as you, you will never learn anything."
Backed by the power and monetary resources of Harvard University, Franken assembled a team of 14 researchers from whom much could be expected. Unfortunately, it appears they spent most of their time bolstering ad hominum attacks on various conservatives rather than building cases able to stand up under close scrutiny. Questioning Ann Coulter's age and making an issue out of the typical use of "footnote" for "endnote" was simply silly. Current scholarship favors the extensive use of endnotes so as to not break up the continuity of analytical presentation. Working at Harvard, Franken should have known that.
In many cases it was impossible to separate the author's lame attempts at sarcasm or humor from what he might be representing as fact. Quite possibly he used this mechanism to be able to reject any scholarly criticism of his "facts" by simply saying that the point in question wasn't meant to be factual -- it was merely humor. Serious criticisms of conservatives that could have been presented were lost in the multiplicity of inane discussions like why he calls Ann Coulter a "nutcase." Moreover, it is never appropriate to use such terms, which the author freely interjects throughout his book, and his case is greatly damaged as a result.
Harvard University should be ashamed of supporting this project, and without supporting a like project from conservatives, Harvard must be firmly placed at the top of the list of leftist schools, more interested in pushing a point of view than scholarly research and publication of the evidence of such research and its analysis.
Franken does inestimable harm to liberal political thought with the publication of this book. I do not recommend it to liberals or conservatives who wish to add to their knowledge.
Summary of Lies and the Lying Liars Who Tell Them: A Fair and Balanced Look at the Right
or the first time since his bestselling RUSH LIMBAUGH IS A BIG FAT IDIOT, Franken trains his subversive wit directly on the contemporary political scene. Now, the "master of political humor" (Washington Post) 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 Ann Coulter, Bill O'Reilly, Roger Ailes, the entire Fox network nor the Bush administration. This is the book Al Franken fans have been waiting for (and his foes have been dreading).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 Moe
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