Rating: 
Summary: Gasbags (apologies to Calvin Trillin) exposed!
Review: If you believed "Treason" as gospel truth, please buy this book. It should be just the thing to bring on the aneurysm you've been keeping in check. I know neo-cons will deride this book as more evidence of the liberal agenda, but it does have a healthy set of notes that seem to back up its statements. Substance like this doesn't seem to appear in books by Hannity, O'Reilly, or Coulter. I wonder why that is? If you're in doubt about buying it, the anecdote involving Paul Wolfowitz is worth the price of admission. Given his present level of influence, it's wonderful to bear witness to such a great mind at work.
Rating: 
Summary: A real labor of love
Review: If you bought this book expecting to get a few laughs out of it, you will be sadly disappointed. If you bought this expecting to learn something substantive about politics and political philosophy, you'll be even more disappointed. While this book might climb the charts, and be a favorite among the hard-core left, it really falls flat as an exposition of the Right. Al Franken's hatred for the Right comes through almost on every page, but his criticism tends to vary between the pedantic and the petty. Take his charges against Mr Bill O'Reilly for example.According to Mr Franken O'Reilly once claimed that Inside Edition won two Peabody Awards, but when Franken does a little detective work he learns that Inside Edition never won a Peabody, but a Polk back in 1995, after O'Reilly had moved on to greener pastures. Now is this a lie? Did O'Reilly deliberately make this up hoping someone wouldn't catch him? Or did he just remember Inside Edition winning an award and thought it was Peabody? Regardless of where you come down the question, it is obvious that this "lie" has nothing to do with politics, the Right in America, or anything else. At most it would prove that O'Reilly -- unlike all other Americans -- likes to embellish his resume a little. But Franken's agenda is really more subtle and insidious -- he ties O'Reilly to the Right, calls attention to the fact that O'Reilly falsely claimed to win a Peabody, and uses the incident as a template to discolor the entire right-wing in America. His implication is that the Right is fundamentally dishonest, unscrupulous, and its agenda only can survive by emiting lie after lie to cover its true character from the American people. We should remember that O'Reilly's political hero is Bobby Kennedy, that he regards Franklin Roosevelt as the greatest President of the 20th century, and was one of the biggest supporters of Clinton's war against Serbia. Franken makes much ado over Hannity's sloppy arithmetic in claiming the Middle Class benefits the most from Bush's tax cut. Of course this is more of a semantic debate rather than a real one. In absolute dollars more money will flow to the rich, but the Middle Class will receive a greater percentage return from the tax cut. Why then is it wrong to suggest that Middle Class are the ones to benefit the most from the tax cut? For instance, if someone says China is the fastest growing economy, measuring in at 10% annual growth, would that be inaccurate? After all, if the United States' economy grows at 4% annually, it actually grew much more -- in absolute terms -- than China's economy did. But we measure growth in percentages, not absolute dollars. That is why it is fair to say that the Middle Class are the primary beneficiaries of Bush's tax cuts -- Franken's analysis notwithstanding. We live in age of pop journalism, pop science, and pop culture. Al Franken's books, like Michael Moore's, will get an instant popular reception on the charts but will soon be forgotten and will not be remembered for adding a single bit of wisdom to political discussion. Remember, if your time is valuable, then this book isn't.
Rating:
Summary: Real Mature, Al...Real Mature
Review: If you can get past the juvenile title of the book...Heck, you really shouldn't get past the title.
Rating: 
Summary: If you choose destructive people...
Review: If you choose destructive people, you'll get hurt. If you choose generous people, you will benefit. It's pretty simple. What isn't simple is figuring out the good from the bad. But in some cases, it's obvious. This weekend, [Democratic] Presidential Candidate Howard Dean held a fund-raiser here in New York City. The entertainment was provided by a man who is, well, let's let his words speak for themselves. AL FRANKEN, COMEDIAN: ...of how big an [bleep] Brit Hume is. And how shameless, how [bleep] shameless these people are. These people are so [bleep] shameless. They are shameless. And I don't just say this because the FOX [News] people sued me. Are these words from a sane man or a man who has some major emotional problems? How many "Right wingers" have you heard talk like this at a Presidential fund-raiser and what would you think of them?
Rating:
Summary: Big AL
Review: If you don't have anything to do while taking a crap this is a great book. Then just in case you run out of toilet paper you are covered!!
Rating:
Summary: Do Us All a Favor
Review: If you find yourself noddng in assent as you sit on your couch watching Hannity and Colmes or think that Bill O'Reilly is an entertaining guy, or maybe shouting "here, here" as Ann Coulter goes hysterical on Bill Maher, or voted for George W. Bush, please do us all a favor: read this book, sit down, re-evaluate your life, and admit you've been wrong all this time about everything. Then give it to a friend to read.
Rating:
Summary: Far from just a witty screed
Review: If you hated "Rush Limbaugh Is A Big Fat Idiot", you are going to hate this book as well. If, on the other hand, you enjoyed Franken's first book of ironic political observations, you'll find that much here is familiar. There's the evisceration of a misleading table and replament with a more honest table - about the true beneficiaries of the Reagan tax cuts in the first book, and about the true culprit behind Reagan's deficits in this one. There's a return to the White House Correspondents' Dinner - Franken was a performer in the first book during the Clinton years, a guest here during these Bush years. And there's a reprise of 'Operation Chickenhawk', in which Franken imagines what might have happened if famous hawkish conservatives had actually had to go to Vietnam. For me, however, the best part of the book was almost smack dab in the center. Unlike the conservative commentators who railed against it, Franken was actually present for the now-infamous Wellstone Memorial, and in what is possibly the most moving chapter in the book, Franken first describes the memorial and his experience of it, then explains how the Republican party, assisted by the right-wing media apparatus that supports them, manipulated the substance and twisted the meaning of that memorial for their own political gain. Though some of the motifs may be familiar, the factual material is new and copiously researched thanks to what Franken refers to as TeamFranken, his crew of Harvard-educated research assistants. The humor, of course, is all Franken. If you enjoyed "Rush Limbaugh Is A Big Fat Idiot", you will not for a moment regret picking this one up.
Rating:
Summary: Couldn't put it down!
Review: If you have ever watched fox news and wanted to scream then this is your book. Al Franken does a wonderful job of using the right wing's own lies to expose them and make us laugh. The book is incredibly funny and intelligent. Mr. Franken documents and exposes all the conservative lies most liberals have been seething about for years. Mr. Franken uses transcripts from Bill O'Lielly (O'Rielly), Sean Hannity, Ann Coulture and others to expose either their stupidity or out right lies. The great part is that he isn't just name-calling, he is using their own words to expose them (he does like to name call too). Strange silence has emerged from the right after the Fox lawsuit was thrown out of court because they can't defend themselves. A great victory for the left and an outright embarrassment for the right. The funniest book I've read since Stupid White Men.
Rating:
Summary: It's a funny read
Review: If you have fun reading rants from an unbalanced mind you'll love this read. Franken can spew so much hate filled venom the read becomes hilarious. The book did tire me some as would any writen diatribe spewn out in an endless temper tantrum. Franken is a good author, though he's all over the place. Al definitely needs to adjust his meds to get a better view of reality. He and Rush have more in common than you think.
Rating:
Summary: If you have not read the book¿
Review: If you have not read the book you can not criticizes it. This book was thoroughly researched and is very entertaining. It exposing the "Rightwing dottoheads" for what they are. If you read page 166 you won't be able to tell me that Al isn't fair or well researched. I was there.... I know it happened.
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