Rating: 
Summary: burn this book now!
Review: I cannot tell you how much I hated this book and urge you to boycott it. I am a lifelong Republican and activist. My party stands for those who are successful, Christian minded, and controlling those who want to hurt American business. - First of all, how dare you oppose Bush in not supporting of the glorious war and Crusade against non-Christian infidels? What's all this bull about WMDs? Saddam killed, so we killed, might makes right in any sensible mind. So all those who are against Bush are going to hell.
- Democrats are all renegade swine, quite frankly, and it's a crying shame they are even allowed to vote. Jesus would have supported Bush in his war against muslim sheep and cutting funds for people who are disabled, crippled, retarded, old, etc. It's their own fault, Bush didn't make these losers the way they are.
- So Bush didn't win the popular election; God wanted him to be President, God didn't trust the 'popular majority' and God wanted a military hero like Bush in office. Thank God for our unbiased Supreme Court.
- Furthermore, how dare you show narrow-minded animosity at Bush when he is a self made man. Don't believe those who say the US doesn't have enough jobs. If the Mexicans can find jobs, so can you. Republicans get better jobs because we know the game, know how to take advantage of the system, and because of our Godly contacts. You should buy Anne Coulter books instead. She is the leading spokeswoman for the Republican party because she knows and speaks our truth. Quotes from her:
• "I think [women] should be armed but should not [be allowed to] vote...women have no capacity to understand how money is earned. They have a lot of ideas on how to spend it....it's always more money on education, more money on child care, more money on day care."-- Politically Incorrect, 2/26/01
• "...a cruise missile is more important than Head Start."-- Speech, 11/01, rebroadcast by C-Span in Jan. 2002
• "In his brief fiery ride across the landscape, Joe McCarthy bought America another thirty years. For this, he sacrificed his life, his reputation, his name. The left cut down a brave man, but not before the American people heard the truth."-- The Drudge Report, quoting from Coulter's new book, Treason, 6/19/03 • "We hate them. Americans don't want to make Islamic fanatics love us. We want to make them die. There's nothing like horrendous physical pain to quell anger. A couple of well-aimed nuclear weapons will get our opposition out of the way."-- Column, 9/25/02
• "We should invade their countries, kill their leaders and convert them to Christianity."-- Column, 9/13/01
• "We need to execute people like John Walker in order to physically intimidate liberals, by making them realize that they can be killed, too. Otherwise, they will turn out to be outright traitors."-- Speech to Conservative Political Action Conference, January 2002 • "Soldiers are just cowards with their backs against the wall. The lowest IQ men in our society, those incapable of normal careers enlist. Their choice in life; prison or the military. Some will have to die in the support of our cause."-- Intervention Magazine, 11/06/03
• "The only beef Enron employees have with top management is that management did not inform employees of the collapse in time to allow them to get in on the swindle."-- Column, 1/24/02
• "My only regret with Timothy McVeigh is he did not go to the New York Times Building."-- New York Observer interview, 8/20/02
• "Then there are the 39 million greedy geezers collecting Social Security. The greatest generation rewarded itself with a pretty big meal."-- WorldNetDaily, 12/10/03 My hero is the Ex-House Speaker, Newt Gingrich, GOP presidential prospect, and architect of the Republican Party's failed impeachment of President Clinton. He only failed because Newt was having an affair. Who could blame Newt, his wife went and got sick with cancer. That was completely different from Clinton.
Unlike Clinton, Newt was smart enough to divorce his wife after she got sick and could no longer drag him down with her. Lastly, how dare you stumblingly expose your miscreant incompetence with rantings against the Patriot Act. In my mind
Some Americans have too many Constitutional rights. The Bill of Rights should not even apply to the blue-collar middle classes who are too stupid to get involved. No Bush hating media or newspapers should have 'freedom of the press,' since they only have their rights and freedoms because the rich allow them to have them. Ever see some poor slob or middle class idiot who owned a newspaper company? You defamatory libelous, uneducated swine should keep your comments to yourselves or we'll send your job overseas. Go out and burn this book now!
Rating:
Summary: Poorly written. Not funny.
Review: I cannot understand the positive reviews that have been given. The book is poorly written and not funny. "Petty" also describes many of the arguments. It seems that the author could only find minor faults with the people he was criticizing. This was in the comedy section of my library. Out of curiosity I also found Bill O'Reilly's (sp?) "Factor" in the politics section of the library and read some of it. That really is well written and professionally done.
Rating: 
Summary: Facts have no place in this book
Review: I checked out Al Franken's book hoping to find an intelligent and funny look at modern politics from an opposing persepctive. What I found was a multitude of lies and cheap shots. Al Franken even failed at being funny, as his jokes mainly consist of swearing at people. I tried to give this a fair chance; I really did. However, a man who finds the New York Times to be 100% objective and finds Fox News to be so right-wing that it's fascist has some serious issues. His writing is on the level of Michael Moore's (that is to say, horrible and full of lies and slander). You would think a book that pruportes to be a "Fair and balanced look at the right" would do more than just insult everyone with whom he does not agree. If you wish to read a liberal who knows how to write and actually is funny, check out Bill Maher. But, please, leave this one on the bookshelves and stop buying into the publicity.
Rating:
Summary: More blathering hypocrisy...
Review: I checked this out of the library. Franken was funny--about 20 years ago. He hits humorous strides a few times here but this is basically another one of those dopey mad-as-hell-liberal books written for the absolutley humorless and self-righteous political clones that now make up the liberal wing of the Democratic Party. One example of this phenomenon: MoveOn.Org, the lib group that like Franken has been puking all over Bush with its newspaper ads, just took one out in California saying how despicable it would be for Californias to allow a serial grab-ass like Schwarzenegger to become governor of California. This is the same group that took out ads saying how despicable it was to impeach lying, serial grab-ass Bill Clinton over HIS sexual pecadillos, though the accusations against him included sexual assault. These people, like Franken, have high double standards. The hilarious thing to me is how they've become most like the people they most mock--the religious right--in their orthodoxy and willingness to smear anyone who posits a view opposite to theirs. This must be very satisfying to the zealots--but it also explains why Gray Davis is in the dock in California and the White House and Congress belong to the Republicans.
Rating: 
Summary: Bravo Al!!
Review: I commend Al Franken for having written this book. It is a lucid and often hilarious analysis of what passes for political discourse in the US today. Too many good chapters to name a favorite but "Loving America the Al franken Way" stands out because it focuses on the difference between how progressives and right wingers love their county. Brilliant stuff. In the post 9-11 environment political dissent has been stifled by a poisonous patriotic fervor that threatens the health of American democracy. Franken highlights the inherent dangers by lampooning the demaguogery of the right wing nutjobs like Hannity, Coulter and "O'Lielley." Bush takes his licks later in the book and Franken puts his disastreous fiscal and foreign policies under his satirical microscope - the chapter with the tax lawyer and waitress particularly illustrating the shameful misrepresentation of his tax cuts to the working masses. With humor, Mr. Franken has managed to expose the mendacity of the American right for all to see and it is not pretty.
Rating:
Summary: Proving that Right is often wrong...
Review: I confess some bias here, since I have long been highly suspicious of the motives, and credibility, of the neo-conservative media and its celebrities. But, unlike his "literary" counterparts on the Right, Franken builds his case on sound research and first hand experience. Compared to Coulter and Hannity - whose books overflow with supercharged emotion, skewed facts, and vicious partisan hyperbole - Franken is indeed "fair and balanced" here. This does not mean that Franken is agenda-free...far from it! But his agenda is to expose the New Right media for the sham that it is; to deliver a counter punch in the 24-7 assualt on liberal ideology from the Right. Using a powerful combination of data, humor, and instinct, Franken delivers a knockout! With this book, the right wing media is exposed for what it really is, and the emperor has no clothes...
Rating: 
Summary: Funny AND Smart
Review: I confess that I prefer Franken's "Limbaugh" book, because that was funnier, and there are a lot of darker essays here--but I suppose that's because we live in darker days. Still, Franken brilliantly combines the intelligent if pedantic style of Joe Conason ("Big Lies") and the in-your-face ad hominems of Jason Johnson ("I Hate Bush and So Do You"). Republicans who criticize the book for not being even-handed apparently overlook the fact that Al Franken backs up his statements with FACTS, which, I also noticed, the Bush defenders don't deny.
Rating:
Summary: Blinded by the right?
Review: I consider myself a centrist with leanings to the right and fairly conservative in my views but I found this one of the funniest books I've read in a long time. I think Al Franken tackles a lot of what I see is the biggest enemy our side has, our own liars (both sides have them). I've always thought Bill O' Reilly was an arrogant blowhard and reading about him getting caught and sand blasted with his own B.S. was worth the book price alone, but it gets even better as you go along. If you are "blinded by the right" I am sorry for you, he makes some great points and is truly entertaining. (Obviously written by some Farleft pinko POSING as a right winger)
Rating: 
Summary: Better Than Most of Its Ilk
Review: I consider myself a conservative, but in trying to keep an open mind about things, I read books from the "other side" from time to time. I read "Lies and the Lying Liars Who Tell Them: A Fair and Balanced Look at the Right" by Al Franken. Even though I agreed with only about 20% of what he wrote, the book was well written and funny at times. I think Mr. Franken communicated the message he set out to convey. This book is much better than the more venomous books of Michael Moore.
Rating:
Summary: A real wake up call for moderates.
Review: I consider myself a moderate. Therefore, when I read this book I was expecting a funny book more so than a eye-opening experience. Franken's wit is razor sharp and I was rolling within minutes of starting. However, the overall effect on me was to reveal some of the more despicable and underhanded "loose interpretations" of the truth employed by the conservative media. I am a frequent listener of several of the radio personalities named by Franken. On the whole, I used to find them entertaining more than enlightening. Now, I cast a more critical eye to these folks and their vitriolic brand of dialogue with the American public. While Franken appears somewhat vengeful in one particular dramatic chapter, this book is remarkably even-handed actually supporting factual allegations with sources. What a concept! A real pleasure and a real motivator.
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