Rating: 
Summary: Franken is smarter than the average bear
Review: OK, OK, I have to admit when I read my first Al Franken book, I was a little skeptical of anything written by a man who played such an obvious mental deficient so well in the movie TRADING PLACES. But, after reading "Rush Limbaugh is a Big Fat Idiot etc.", I was quite impressed. This man is smart enough to be REALLY funny, while insightful at the same time.I also have to admit I'm skeptical of any book that has a chapter titled "Ann Coulter: Nutcase". But, after you read a few pages, you realize that it's a fairly accurate description of her. This is a well-researched, insightful, and EXTREMELY funny book. By far, my favorite chapter is the story of the Paul Wellstone memorial service, which is poignant enough to make you melancholy, but interspersed with enough humor to make it not a complete tear-jerker. Of course, a book like this has sparked a storm of criticism from conservatives (the most obviouse evidence of this is some of the reader reviews on this page!), a storm of counter-criticism from fans (again, refer to other reviews), numerous websites attacking or defending it, and even a lawsuit from Fox News Channel. I have to believe, after reading the book, that that was sparked by Bill O'Reilly, angry over the HORRIBLE looking picture of him on the cover! Needless to say, the suit was laughed out of court. I'm sure Franken will have something to say about it when the paperback version comes out. All of this controversy has no doubt helped sales of the book tremendously. As for Franken's reaction to it? I'm sure he's laughing all the way to the bank!
Rating:
Summary: a less partisan review
Review: Ok.
There have been some pretty paultry reviews of this book from both sides of the political isle. So, rather than make a partisan attack against people who don't share my political views, I'll stick to simply reviewing the book. First off, as a comedey writer and satarist, Franken is excellent. He's creative, has excellent timing, and is capable of logically tearing down an opponents argument and making a joke of it. People attacking Franken for not being funny or for being a bad writer are either letting their politics guide their judgement, or just haven't read the book. It would be like me attacking P.J. O'Rourke for being a bad writer or having a poor sense of humor just because he's a Conservative (moderately Conservative). On to the political side of things: Despite what some of the detractors to this book say, Franken is NOT an extreme liberal. He's not a moderate either, but rather in that area between Joe Lieberman and Micheal Moore...in the neighborhood of John Kerry. Some people label anyone even moderately to the left of the political spectrum a liberal extremist. Franken is not. Franken supports globalization (WTO) which puts him at odds with most environmental extremists. Franken supports Israel, which puts him at odds with most extreme Palastinian rights organizations. Franken eats meat, which puts his at odds with radical vegans. Franken is no more an extreme liberal than John McCain (who, by the way, Franken speaks very highly of in this book) is an extreme conservative. Attempts to label him as such betray a deep lack of understanding of politics. Franken, like most Americans, supported the war in Afganistan to capture AL Queda. Franken, like most Americans, supported the war in Iraq until the evidence supporting that war became less and less verifiable. Bush's plummeting approval ratings and public sentiment over the war shows that Franken's view is not terribly radical, but actually firmly rooted in the mainstream. To that end, if you like Michael Moore, you will probably think this book is too middle-of-the-road for you. Unlike Moore (who I used to like until he sacrificed truth for volume) Franken exhaustively fact-checks his information. You can (and I have) find every single article he sites and every single interview he quotes on lexis-nexis. My only complaint is that, as an academic, I'm used to (and prefer) seeing citations quoted in the text (at the end of the paragraph). Franken uses a unique form of citation in which, at the end of the book, there is a listing of all relevant sources, catagorized by chapter, along with information on how to obtain that source (web link, lexis-nexis keyword, and so forth). I understand that, in a popular work, heavy citation in the text makes it harder to read, but its what I'm used to and it does ad an air of authority to the text. Likewise, Franken sometimes mixes comedy with his facts, not to the point of being dishonest, but it might mislead some people. He doesn't do this on purpose, I think he just assumes a level of sophistication on the part of the audience, which (as several bad reviews here can attest) might be a bit rash on his part. Finally, some attention has been given to two examples of what detractors consider hypocracy: the Ann Coulter's end notes, and the letter to Ashcroft from Harvard. First off, some have said that Franken is being hypocritcal because he blasts Ann Coulter for using end notes, THEN he uses end notes himself. The point is: he wasn't blasting Coulter for using end-notes, he was blasting Coulter for using end-notes but SAYING (on the news and in interviews) that she uses footnotes. He's making a point about intellectual honesty. Finally, the letter to Ashcroft wasn't dishonesty: it was a joke...like a prank call. People who don't get this should avoid reading in general. Overall, and excellent book.
Rating: 
Summary: Roasts the right on a self-made spit
Review: Okay, I lied. It's only three stars. But it's a little white lie. Since this sort of book always attracts dozens of 1 star reviews from "reviewers" who never bothered to read it, I thought I'd cut Al a little slack. The style of humor here is the type we've grown to know and love, or know and hate, depending. That is to say, Franken imitates an over-the-top, foam-mouthed hurler of vile epithets, going so far overboard that no one (except his targets) could possibly take him seriously, meanwhile utterly failing to hide the pussycat within. He does get seriously angry (and seriously unfunny) in only one chapter. He takes the matter personally because Paul Wellstone was a personal friend of Franken's (as he was of so many.) It's the chapter detailing how the right wing successfully planted the meme that 20 seconds of endlessly played clips, pulled out of the four-hour memorial service for Paul Wellstone and the family and friends who went down with his plane, constituted proof that the whole event was a partisan hack job. That was, of course, a lie. Fox and friends found the only political 20 seconds of the evening, distributed them on endless tapeloop, ignored the three hours of tributes to the others who died, lied again about Republicans being "booed off stage" (there was a barely audible smattering of boos at a single point, when the camera picked up Trent Lott in the crowd - a clip that was never shown on the media, because the applause drowning out the boos would have contradicted the preferred lie of the moment), and got all the "liberal" media to echo their howls of indignation. Echoing was easier for CNN and the gang than sitting through four hours - or even ten minutes - of tape to learn what actually went on. For the rest, Franken has five targets here: Ann Coulter, Bill O'Reilly, and Sean Hannity, each of whom is savaged mercilessly simply by juxtaposing a few of their blatant untruths side by side with the facts of the case. None of them are accorded any quarter, and none of them, shameless and basically nonstop prevaricators all, deserve any. The other two faces at the center of the dartboard are corrected more gently: liar-in-chief George Bush, and the lazy "Why check out a lie when you can just
report it?" media. Yes, it's funny. Very little of it is laugh out loud funny, but it's at least up to Franken's usual standard of risibility. If you liked his other stuff, you'll like this every bit as well. He is not as entertaining (in the punch line per page sense anyway), nor as angry, as Michael Moore. He is, happily, every bit as unbalanced as that worthy. But he is considerably more fair. He documents everything he says, and like Santa checks it twice. Unless he can delegate the checking to his elves. Or as he himself assures us, "Thanks to Team Franken, you can rest assured that almost every fact in this book is correct. Either that, or it's a joke." If there's a difference between this and his earlier bestsellers, it's the quantity of good solid political ammunition it contains: hard facts, hard quotes, lie after lie nailed to the wall and spread out like an entomological specimen for all the world to see. Though much of this ammunition is expended on already dead horses (the "credibility" of the Coulter O'Reilly Hannity triad), the rest is potentially handy. Once you've chuckled your way through the book, you might want to feed it to any friends who are suffering from information malnutrition thanks to Fox and the Fox wannabes. They might just perk up far enough to take those TV IVs out of their arms.
Rating:
Summary: The right has been exposed
Review: Okay, I'll admit it. I'm a liberal, female, head of the household, and a democrat to boot. And yes, I thoroughly enjoyed the book. What impressed me most was the time and research that went into the making of it. Even the conservative right will be hard pressed to refute the findings of TeamFranken. I stood behind Bush after 9/11 but the war in Iraq has led me to believe the man is an idiot. I will campaign hard to have him removed from office next year. My mind was made up long before I read the book, though.
Rating:
Summary: Buy or Borrow This Book
Review: Okay, I'll admit that my own political leanings are strikingly similar to Al Franken's, so I got much of what I expected. That said, I really liked the way Al used specific examples and exhaustive research to refute many of the claims made by right-wing pundits and to demonstrate their lack of veracity. O'Reilly's claims of journalistic credibility, Coulter's insane rantings, Hannity's bombast. Especially telling were his answers to the outlandish accusations against Bill Clinton and Al Gore by various conservatives. Basically, their claims lack any shred of proof or misstate events while Al provides direct quotes and names of sources in refutation. Good stuff. My only criticism would be his occasional lapses into parody in the midst of a solid argument. The Bush administration, in its blind hatred of all things Clinton, failed to follow up on intelligence pointing to attacks by Al Qaeda. But to refer to it by an operational name without identifying the name as parody (unless there really was such an operation) could cause those from the dark side to question his credibility. All in all, buy or borrow this book, but definitely read it.
Rating:
Summary: Steve_AZ
Review: Okay, I'm pretty sure I've looked through all of the negative one-star reviews. Unless I missed something, I can only recall one that actually tried to refute something specific of the content of Al Franken's book. That person said that Colmes is not the only liberal pundit on Fox News, there's also Geraldo Rivera (and although Geraldo may have lots of liberal positions on things, I wouldn't exactly consider him to be a partisan liberal or conservative, I think of him more as just a tabloid-sensationalist idiot). Other than that, none of the negative reviews went into any specifics on trying to rebut or refute the actual content of the book. You can see that as a result, most of the one-star reviews got low "helpfulness" ratings ("two out of 16 people found this rating helpful). If you look at the 5-star reviews, you will see that most of them have pretty decent "helpfulness" ratings. I don't know, my review probably hasn't been very helpful so far. I enjoyed the book, but I wish he had posted more footnotes (or "end notes", whatever he wants to call them).
Rating:
Summary: Be Prepared to Have Your Eyes Opened!
Review: Okay, if you are a liberal, you will enjoy this book more than others. Like me, you will laugh along with Franken and nod in agreement with facts and opinions you already know and share. If you are an independent, however, or are unfamiliar with the current political climate, you will probably find yourself gasping aloud as Franken intelligently and wittily tears down one Conservative lie/talking-point after another. And if you are a Conservative--you know you're not going to agree with Franken's opinions. If you're easily rankled--don't bother reading it because you know you're going to get mad--it's not good for the health! :-) Undoubtedly my favorite chapters were "Operation Chickenhawk: Episode One," "Supply Side Jesus," and the one on the events leading up to September 11th. His chapter on Wellstone's memorial service was especially moving (he also explains the truth behind the booing of Lott). Be prepared to have your eyes opened to what's really going on in today's political world--and how the right-wing media is manipulating the facts. Pick up this book today (and one for a friend)!
Rating:
Summary: As you buy, visit www.frankenlies.com for a good laugh!!!
Review: Okay, one more time: Since Mr."Frankenlies.com" is starting to post again, it is time to once again remind him to actually read the book he's reviewing. Yet again, from Al's book (page xiv): "If you think you've found something that rings untrue, you've probably just missed a hilarious joke, and should blame yourself rather than me or TeamFranken." For those of you who haven't read it yet (besides all the one star reviewers, of course), Al's book contains a chapter which takes a satirical look at what the Bush administration was doing in regards to terrorism prior to 9/11. The name of the chapter is "Operation Ignore" (did you get the joke that time, Mr."Frankenlies.com"?). Mr."Frankenlies.com" has devoted an entire section of his website (section #16 if you want to look it up) to detailing (with twelve, count'em TWELVE, footnotes!!!)that there never was a Bush plan called "Operation Ignore". Mr."Frankenlies.com", please, you didn't need twelve footnotes in order to know there never was a Bush plan called "Operation Ignore", all you needed was a SENSE OF HUMOR!!! So to the Amazon.com customer, I say, if you have a sense of humor, BUY THIS BOOK!!! If you don't have a sense of humor, go to the "Operation Ignore" section of Frankenlies.com, print out the twelve footnotes and keep them in your wallet at all times, otherwise at any moment you may start believing there really was a Bush plan called "Operation Ignore".
Rating:
Summary: A book to share with your conservative (friends?)!
Review: Okay, so I had my suspicions. A feeling in the pit of my gut. I just couldn't articulate it. Luckily, Al Franken, along with the graciously credited 'Team Franken', has pulled it together for me. I am being fed a line of swill direct from the 'liberal media' designed to turn me in to another Bush-whacked droid. I always had a feeling I shouldn't buy into it. Now I have proof. A 'guru' of fact. The best part of this book is that, unlike 'conservative' (or liberal??) talk radio, print media, FNC, etc., Franken requres me to think for myself. He states his case, and backs it up with good research. At no time does he have an expectation that his reader will accept his premise simply because he states it in print. He also makes me laugh. Really hard. It also scares me a lot. Of course, I am only kidding... 'on the square'.
Rating:
Summary: Only the facts, mam!
Review: OMG! I bought it at the airport and was laughing out loud before I had even finished the introduction. Al Franken, besides being a gut busting comedic talent, is a TRUE PATRIOT. He exposes the Emperor Bush and his ranting right-wingers with numerous documented examples of deceit. With detailed analysis of what the public is being fed by todays castrated media, he uncovers the facts and presents them in a sane understandable manner. His TeamFranken has done an awesome job! I loved this book! Gee, I think I love Al Franken...lol
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