World Famous Comics: Lies (And the Lying Liars Who Tell Them): A Fair and Balanced Look at the Right
Lies (And the Lying Liars Who Tell Them): A Fair and Balanced Look at the Right
By: Al Franken Publisher: Dutton Average Rating: Binding: Hardcover Label: Dutton Number of Items: 1 Number of Pages: 368 Publication Date: August 29, 2003
Product Description: 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.
Amazon.com Review: 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
funny stuff Really funny stuff. Probably wouldn't be a good read for people that watch "Bill O'Reilly" for anything other than comic relief.
The limits to political satire We live in an age of robust political satire, its vigor perhaps fueled by the fact that American political reality is so bizarre that mere recitation of the facts accompanied by a raised eyebrow or a funny voice is enough to make any sane person laugh or cry. Most of this garden of satirical delights is delivered on television, a little bit comes in the form of fiction you might consult: Thank You for Smoking: A Novel or my own bang BANG: A Novel. Franken's book is an attempt to keep the satirical voice alive on the printed page and it's an attempt that's only partially successful. The problem may be in the fact that explaining the mendacity of a Coulter requires a lot of reference to facts and disentangling tiny threads of truth from flatulent clouds of lies. Rush Limbaugh hands off a distortion to Tucker Carlson who adds some make-believe details. The telling is fascinating, but not exactly the stuff of satire. It's hard to imagine a Juvenal or even a Mark Twain taking on the tale. A few weeks after reading this book, I mentioned it to a friend who told me that she had it on tape. She popped the cassette in a player and we listened to a few minutes and I had one of my rare bursts of clarity: the richest parts of this book are transcribed stand-up. They're meant to be heard, not read and the rhythm of a comic voice is essential to their meaning. The more serious essays, like the recount of the distortion of Paul Wellstone's funeral by the Colemans, Webers and (alas) Noonans are appropriate vehicles for sarcasm perhaps, but the satirical tone just doesn't survive intact.
This quibble doesn't diminish in any way the importance of the message: there's a lot of nonsense in the predominantly right-wing media and the silliest idea of all is that the right is not in charge and consciously employing lies for its own ends.
From someone who ACTUALLY read the book... Beautiful book...this ought to be required reading for anyone interested in modern American politics. Some of the other "reviews" here just don't give the impression that they actually read this book and if they did probably skimmed it and didn't comprehend what they were reading...or just read it with their right-wing propoganda goggles on which is basically like not reading it at all. Franken has been around awhile and is more than a simple comic...he digs up real, verifiable facts of events and other data (quite a bit from first hand experience in the situations) and presents them clearly to set the record straight. He shines the light on the liars with actual truth and delivers it on a plate with wit and sarcasm. He concentrates on the worst violators of the newer brand of underhanded politics which is pretty much patented to the Republican party (for you whiners, that's why it seems like he's only going after one side of the narrow American political spectrum...though if you DO read it you'll see that it's not 100% that way...but hey, you right-wing whiners aren't really concerned with the truth anyway, so...). If you LIKE the lies certain individuals are telling for their own gain then you WON'T like this book, but if you DO care about the truthful details of past events (history) then you'll LOVE this book...it's that simple.
Did anyone ever thought politicians don't lie? Back when I was in school, I used to believe that anything I read in books must be the truth. When one day my professor failed me on a paper I had written, I complained and showed him that in fact what I had written were not my ideas but the ideas from a book. I showed him the book. He still failed me, arguing that the ideas set forth in the book were wrong. I was speechless. I went to the Dean and complained. I showed the Dean the book. He agreed with my professor, but agreed to have me rewrite the paper. I learnt the hard way that day that not everything you read is the truth.
Today we are bombarded with lies, whether through our TV sets, newspapers, magazines, or books. In "Lies and the Lying Liars who tell them" Al Franken demonstrates, by using examples, how lies prevail in our society. People lie in order to advance their own agendas. But honestly, did anyone actually believe that politicians don't lie? I'm yet to see one.
This book exposes by name those who have lied to us. I found the book hilarious, but at times was offended by his strong words. There is some strong language in this book, and his language might offend many readers.
There are some interesting facts in the book, especially about the Clinton administration. No matter how successful a presidency is, there are always enemies within. I never realized how far one could go in order to achieve his or her goal. By the end of the book I came to hate the politicians who make up the American political system. The conclusion I reached is that politicians are self-serving animals (for lack of a better word), and I think Al Franken would agree with me. No wonder we have so many problems in the world!
Poor Effort by 15 Supposedly High-Powered Individuals 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.
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