Rating: 
Summary: Lies and the Lying Al Franken
Review: The people at Harvard's Shorenstein Center on the Press, Politics and Public Policy stand behind Al Franken.The center - a part of the John F. Kennedy School of Government says it is "dedicated to exploring the intersection of press, politics and public policy in theory and practice." It chose the sometime comedian to be one of its Shorenstein Fellows for Spring 2003. An effusive press release announced that Franken would be "working on a book examining whether or not there is a liberal bias in the media, including a look at the media's treatment of George W. Bush and his administration." Now we have the results of Franken's work in his new book, Lies and the Lying Liars Who Tell Them: A Fair and Balanced Look at the Right. In it, Franken attacks lots of people: Ann Coulter, Bill O'Reilly, George W. Bush and even Alan Colmes, the liberal half of Fox News's "Hannity and Colmes," who Franken believes lacks the gumption to stand up to conservative counterpart Sean Hannity. The book has such chapter titles as "Ann Coulter: Nutcase," "Bill O'Reilly: Lying, Splotchy Bully" and "I Attend the White House Correspondents Dinner and Annoy Karl Rove, Richard Perle, Paul Wolfowitz, and the Entire Fox News Team." It's filled with comedic touches. For example, Franken refers to the Fox talk-show team as "Hannity and Colmes," with the small type used to illustrate Colmes's supposed wimpiness. But a question arises: Does Lies and the Lying Liars Who Tell Them measure up to the high academic standards of Harvard's Shorenstein Center? Yes, said Alex Jones, the former New York Times reporter and Pulitzer Prize winner who is now the center's director. "I would not have allowed a book that I consider frivolous," Jones explained. "What Al Franken had in mind was a serious book. It has a skin of humor, but it is a thoroughly researched book." Jones added that Franken, whose previous works include Rush Limbaugh is a Big, Fat Idiot, Oh, the Things I Know! A Guide to Success, or, Failing That, Happiness and I'm Good Enough, I'm Smart Enough, and Doggone It, People Like Me! is "a political satirist, not just a guy who does schtick." "I take him seriously," Jones said. For his new book, Franken put together a team of 14 Harvard research assistants. "He recruited them on his own," Jones is quick to point out. "They were not paid by us and did not receive any credit." Franken called his group "TeamFranken" and gave the assistants special TeamFranken T-shirts. Dressed and ready, they set to work uncovering the lies of the right. For example, Franken states flatly that George W. Bush, in his younger days, used cocaine. Who knows? Maybe he did. But Franken has no evidence. And he certainly knows that during the 2000 campaign, reporters from major news organizations spent many hours searching - unsuccessfully - for proof of Bush drug use. But who cares? Bush is a lying liar, right? And not just about drugs. About more important things, too - such as taxes. You know the old argument about the president's tax cut: Democrats say more money went to upper-income taxpayers, Republicans say lower-income taxpayers received proportionally bigger cuts. Both are correct, but Franken settles it by simply pronouncing the Republicans lying liars. He does so on the basis of the kind of "thorough" TeamFranken research that so impressed Jones - in this case, apparently reading press handouts from left-leaning advocacy groups. For example, a May 26, 2001, press release from the liberal Center on Budget and Policy Priorities, citing research by the liberal Citizens for Tax Justice, said, "The bottom 60 percent of the population would receive 14.7 percent of the tax cuts."
Franken writes of the tax cuts, "The truth is that the bottom 60 percent got 14.7 percent." Did it really take a gaggle of research assistants to come up with that? There's more along those lines, accusing Bush and the Republicans of lying about Iraq, education and the environment - pretty much everything. And Republicans are not just lying liars. They are very bad people. For example, Franken is angry about racism, which he associates almost exclusively with the GOP. He writes that when he gives corporate speeches, he begins by saying, "Looking out at your faces today, I can see that this group hasn't caved in to that whole affirmative action nonsense." He says audiences "look around, see all the white faces, and laugh." The funny thing is, one could say the same at a meeting of TeamFranken. Judging by a photo published at the end of the book, it appears that Franken's crew has no African-American members. TeamFranken, made up of a grossly disproportionate number of white males, does not look like America. That small, hypocritical note wouldn't matter much were Franken not throwing so many stones. But he is - from the glass house built for him by the Shorenstein Center.
Rating: 
Summary: Same Old, Same Old
Review: The people at Harvard's Shorenstein Center on the Press, Politics and Public Policy stand behind Al Franken The center - a part of the John F. Kennedy School of Government which says it is "dedicated to exploring the intersection of press, politics and public policy in theory and practice" - chose the sometime comedian to be one of its Shorenstein Fellows for Spring 2003. An effusive press release said Franken would be "working on a book examining whether or not there is a liberal bias in the media, including a look at the media's treatment of George W. Bush and his administration." Now we have the results of Franken's work in his new book "Lies and the Lying Liars Who Tell Them: A Fair and Balanced Look at the Right." In it, Franken attacks lots of people: Ann Coulter, Bill O'Reilly, George W. Bush, and even Alan Colmes, the liberal half of Fox News's Hannity and Colmes whom Franken believes lacks the gumption to stand up to conservative counterpart Sean Hannity. The book has chapter titles like, "Ann Coulter: Nutcase," "Bill O'Reilly: Lying, Splotchy Bully," and "I Attend the White House Correspondents Dinner and Annoy Karl Rove, Richard Perle, Paul Wolfowitz, and the Entire Fox News Team." But a question arises: Does Lies and the Lying Liars Who Tell Them measure up to the high academic standards of Harvard's Shorenstein Center? For his new book, Franken put together a team of 14 Harvard research assistants. "He recruited them on his own," Jones is quick to point out. "They were not paid by us and did not receive any credit." Franken called his group "TeamFranken" and gave them all special TeamFranken T-shirts. Dressed and ready, they set to work uncovering the lies of the right. And what did they uncover? For one thing, Franken states flatly that George W. Bush, in his younger days, used cocaine. Who knows? Maybe he did. But Franken has no evidence. And he certainly knows that during the 2000 campaign, reporters from major news organizations spent many hours searching - unsuccessfully - for proof of Bush drug use.
But who cares - Bush is a lying liar, right? And not just about drugs. About more important things, too - like taxes. Franken delves into the old argument about the president's tax cut: Democrats say more money went to upper income taxpayers, while Republicans say lower-income taxpayers received proportionally bigger cuts. Both are correct, but Franken settles it by simply pronouncing the Republicans lying liars. He does so on the basis of the kind of "thorough" TeamFranken research that so impressed Alex Jones - in this case, apparently reading press handouts from left-leaning advocacy groups. On May 26, 2001 the liberal Center on Budget and Policy Priorities issued a press release which, citing research by the liberal Citizens for Tax Justice, said, "The bottom 60 percent of the population would receive 14.7 percent of the tax cuts." In Lies and the Lying Liars Who Tell Them, Franken writes of the tax cuts, "The truth is that the bottom 60 percent got 14.7 percent."
Did it really take a gaggle of research assistants to come up with that? In a chapter entitled "Vast Lagoons of Pig Feces: The Bush Environmental Record," Franken labels George W. Bush "the worst environmental president in our nation's history." As an example, he accuses the Bush administration of gutting Bill Clinton's proposed regulations to solve waste problems at giant livestock farms, which are known in the agriculture business as Concentrated Animal Feeding Operations, or CAFOs.
But Franken wants to be fair. While Bush's policy has been terrible, he writes, "To be totally honest, I wish the Clinton administration had done more to address the pig s**t problem. But at least he [Clinton] was pushing in the right direction. Toward the end of his administration, the EPA issued stringent new CAFO regulations...." What Franken does not mention is that the Environmental Protection Agency issued the new CAFO regulations on December 15, 2000. That was certainly toward the end of the Clinton administration, and it was also two days after the presidential election was settled, which meant that everyone finally knew that George W. Bush, and not Al Gore, would be the next president. And that is when the Clinton administration, which had been in office for nearly eight years, decided to get tough on CAFOs. (In addition, the new regulations would not take effect until after a four-month waiting period, at which point Clinton would be long gone.) Did TeamFranken give you the whole story? You decide. At the end of Lies and the Lying Liars Who Tell Them, Franken gives his prescription for liberal action. He bases it on an incident he describes earlier in the book, in which he approached Deputy Defense Secretary Paul Wolfowitz at a Washington social event and said, "Hi, Dr. Wolfowitz. Hey, the Clinton military did a great job in Iraq, didn't it?" According to Franken, Wolfowitz paused and then answered, "F**k you." In that brief exchange, Franken sees a lesson for liberals. "We've got to be willing to throw their lies in their face," he writes. "When we say, 'Hey, Dr. Wolfowitz, didn't the Clinton military do a great job in Iraq?' And they say, 'F**k you!' We've gotta come right back and say, 'No. F**k you!' That's how we're going to win this thing. Truth to power, baby." At the same time, Franken writes, "We can't fight like they do." Liberals, in stark contrast to conservatives, must be "funny and attractive. And passionate. And idealistic."
Last week, the New York Daily News reported that Franken met with members of the Senate Democratic Caucus, including Hillary Clinton, Charles Schumer, and Minority Leader Tom Daschle. It's not known what advice, if any, Franken gave the lawmakers. Perhaps he told them to be funny and attractive and passionate and idealistic. And - especially when dealing with their Republican counterparts - to say "F**k you!" as much as possible.
Rating: 
Summary: The problem with conservatives...
Review: The people who have written here and given one star refuse to engage Franken on any facts. They can't debate him because Franken is accurate. (Well, the honest reason they can't debate him is undoubtedly that they haven't read the book, but even if they had...) Franken is funny in parts, serious in parts, and (sadly) a bit boring in other parts. Towards the end, he reaches for the golden ring of humor and comes up holding the noose located slightly underneath. It happens, and if you like Franken you forgive him for it. Hey, humor writing isn't easy. As a liberal columnist who isn't as famous as Franken (or as good) I have busted my share of right-wing goons lying. I've caught conservative bozos like Neil Boortz actually changing peoples quotes so he could then attack their newly changed quotes. It's scary and it happens almost every day. The tragedy is - no one cares. If you bust them for a lie, show that they took words out of a quote or added words to one, that they misrepresented facts, or just made stuff up - they just keep lying only with more hostility. Their audience doesn't care. They can tell a hundred lies by the time you have researched and proven one. Conservatives currently control the house, the senate, the Presidency, most governors... They control much of the media - How much more do they need to make conservatism work? we have the worst economy, are engaged in a war with Iraq - based on the lie of them having weapons of Mass destruction. We are losing our freedoms at an alarming rate chasing invisible terrorists in our public libraries... we are allowing large corporations to pollute at will, we are turning over public resources - owned by everyone - over to an elite few. Our surplus has turned into the largest deficit ever... At what point in time do we look around and see that the conservative agenda is not working? Do they have to control every judge, every political office, every newspaper? Right now - they lie with impunity and no one except a handful of people dare to question them in public... Because conservatives simply don't care whether or not what they say is the truth. This is the enemy that Franken is up against and although he takes his stab at it - he can barely make a dent in their armor. Yes, conservatives lie and they do it a lot. We on the left scream,"If your cause is so just why must you lie?" The only answer in their silence is that they lie because they have nothing else - because without the lies they are nothing but a movement of fear and hatred exposed. To our dismay on the left, even Al Franken cannot convert the people who believe in the conservative myth. Not with humor or with facts. Most of us liberals simply cannot understand why not, and Franken doesn't attempt to answer that question. At some point in time it comes down to belief. Franken, like most liberals, believes that facts should shed light over fiction. But this is where we liberals most often go wrong. It isn't about truth - it is about beliefs. You must either believe in science (that which can be observed and deduced by man) or believe in mythology (the explanation that God/the Gods make everything happen for some divine reason). It depends on which of these two roads you call "truth". The more you believe in the "god explanation" - and the more sure you are of your belief - the more conservative you will be. You have to be conservative to hold on to this type of belief, you must protect it against science - because faith, by definition, is the acceptance of a premise that isn't based in human observation and explanation. The more you believe in science over mythology the more you tend to be liberal. That's why we on the left are attacked as "Godless" because we tend to hold faith at a distance. We don't embrace it as zealously as the right. While many on the left believe in Jesus or some other religious figure- they accept that other beliefs are every bit as valid as their own - because they recognize the fragile nature of faith and belief. There can be no middle ground to the fundamentalist. The world is either black or white - not grey. Godless liberals see grey. Franken, in his book, attacks those extremist beliefs with wit and wisdom. He attacks with facts. He attacks the right-wing fundamentalist Christian god (and the fact he is Jewish is no doubt a reason for their hatred as well)... (This angers Christians because they know God is a republican. He believes in the death penalty, he believes in not taxing the rich. God even believes that it is okay to lie for his cause... ) One of the most telling passages is when Franken puts himself in Bill O'Reilly's place after being exposed for saying he won a Peabody Award (he didn't). He wonders why the Fox star didn't just say "I'm sorry I said that. Wow. Hey, thanks for pointing that out - that's really embarrassing. I won't say it again..." that, of course, would be the liberal response to an honest mistake, but in the world of Black and White Conservatism - one can never be wrong. O'Reilly instead of apologizing - had Fox attorney's sue Franken's publisher for copyright infringement (he used the phrase "fair and balanced" on his cover - (Fox's lawsuit was literally laughed out of court)) That's why you get hate reviews from people who never read his book. That's why conservatives need to attack him. This is a war and to them there is no middle ground. Franken points out where faith and fact collide. He is their enemy. If you are on the fence as to what to believe in politics - then read this book and at the end ask yourself one of these two questions: 1) If the conservative right's cause is so just, why must they lie? - or - 2) Why do godless liberals hate America? You won't find these answers in Franken's book, but depending on which question you decide to ask - you will find out where you stand politically (and probably religiously as well).
Rating:
Summary: Pitiful, just pitiful...
Review: The political left has become convinced that the political right has become more successful by clever packaging and personalities. While there's no doubt that's part of it, the bottom line is that the right has been ascendent because of the superiority of their ideas. Yet, leftists such as Al Franken seem to think that writing books like this will help them regain the political highground. No such luck. This book is little more than leftist disinformation and drivel, and poorly written and unentertaining at that. What a waste of paper, time, and money.
Rating: 
Summary: PEASE READ THIS BOOK!
Review: The previous reviewer from San Francisco is just like the other idiot-right-winger fools that Al Franken DESTROYS in this fabulously funny, insightfully accurate book. I enjoyed most how AL TAKES ANN COULTER APART and factually demonstrates what a complete liar she is in her books. Al, and his Harvard research team, "TeamFranken," does the research to demonstrate how her "facts" are fabrication. Please read this book if you want to know how FOX and all their crowd of manipulators have distorted what America sees as "NEWS."
Rating:
Summary: Not Good
Review: The problem with this book is that it is simply a tactic. Of course everything that Franken talks about is debatable, but he really seems to fall where other liberals have fallen before him.
He is good in the fact that he is active and is willing to put alot of what he says on the line by confronting others in a bold way, but there is two main problems with that in itself. First of all, like Michael Moore, he always uses comedy as an excuse for factual inacuracies and second, is always talking about how other people are so wrong, without backing any of it up with anything positive to hold onto. He often tries to discredit people like Sean Hannity, Bill O' Reilly, and Bush who are already easy targets because they themselves are bold. If Franken really wanted to prove his case the he would challenge them more directly, not just insult them like a child.
Rating:
Summary: Not Franken's Best
Review: The problem with this book seems simple to me. Franken seems to
want it to be both a potically humorous work, and a scathing
expose on lies told by prominent conservatives. Unfortunately, trying to be two things at once meant he
succeeded at neither. Not to say he doesn't reveal some blatant lies on the right;
he does, but there's nothing really stunning in it. And not to say that the book isn't funny; it is, but not
roll-on-the-floor hilarious. There are other flaws, too. One that springs to mind is
the large amount of space he devotes to debunking right-wing
claims about Democrats making Paul Wellstone's funeral
into a political rally. The chapter runs *long*. Perhaps
that is because, sad as I am to admit it, his arguments
there are weak. Franken has done better: most notably, the hilarious
satirical novel "Why Not Me?" But this one doesn't like
up to his earlier standards.
Rating:
Summary: Finally, honesty.
Review: The public needs a full time truth squad to monitor their every word. Until then, Al is the next best thing.
Rating:
Summary: NO
Review: The question is, Does Al Franken speak the Truth? Upon analysis and conclusion, the answer to this question is: No! STEVEN TRAVERS
Author of "Barry Bonds: Baseball's Superman"
STWRITES@aol.com
Rating:
Summary: Another Bill O'Reilly lie
Review: The question isn't "Does Bill O'Reilly lie"? It's "Does he even know when he does it?". Fun Fact below: Bill O'Reilly and The Pepsi Boycott Bill claims that he never called for a boycott of Pepsi because of their use of the Hip Hop performer Ludacris in their advertisements. Bill: "I'm calling for all americans to say, hey, pepsi, i'm not drinking your stuff." Bill told an e-mailer that he did not call for a pepsi boycott, because he never used the word boycott. Here is the e-mail and the reply from O'Reilly, right from the transcript.
O' Reilly then receives an email (I believe on his program), and responds. The E-Mail: Lise Rousseau, Lafayette, Colorado, "Mr. O'Reilly, imagine my confusion as I watched you criticize the protester for organizing the Limbaugh boycott. Last August, I heard you tacitly call for a boycott against Pepsi for hiring Ludacris. There is a lack of consistency in your rhetoric." Bill: No, there isn't, Ms. Rousseau...I simply said I wasn't going to drink Pepsi while that guy was on their payroll. No boycott was ever mentioned by me. Does he actually believe that that is what he "simply" said? Or, perhaps, he was more accurately noting that what he said was...simple. (see http://slate.msn.com/id/2078577/ or http://www.oreilly-sucks.com/oreillypepsi.htm, from where I originally got this article.)
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