Rating: 
Summary: waste of time...
Review: The title is totally misleading. It is anything but "fair" and "balanced" and paints everything negative u can imagine... Waste of time and money!
Rating: 
Summary: Great Book
Review: The title is very fitting for the current administration and there media cohorts. Franken coats it all with some great humor but also exposes the lies with good hard facts. He catches the administration and their cohorts in several mistruths and lies by using fact finders to expose them with none other than their FACTS. These lies are not about their sextual endevors but about things that effect our, (you and me) everyday lives. For example 9/11, Clinton and his staff had set up an elaborate antiterrorism plan including evidence that Osama bin Laden would attack using planes that was passed to the Bush administration and ignored. Both Bush and Cheney were great benefactors (millions)of inside trading just like the type that they scolded Enron execs for. Also the many lies were refuted from the likes of Coulter, Hannity and O'Reilly. I would like to see a republican refute this book with evidence that proves that these statements are untrue instead of expecting us to just believe them when they say that they are lies. Please don't just say that they are using "fuzzy math" and expect that to convince us.
Rating:
Summary: Poor Franken just needs a hug.
Review: The title of my review says it all. If we all took the time out of our busy schedule to give Al just one hug then maybe, just maybe, the world would be a better place.
Rating:
Summary: An Excellent Counterattack to Right Wing Hacks
Review: The title, the fact that I give the book 5 stars, and that I find the book to absolutley hilarious should be enough to tell you I really enjoyed the book. However, I'll take this space to beef about one concept of the book that I did not enjoy and seems pervasive in all "liberal" books: hero worship of Bill Clinton. Now, Bill Clinton was not the worst President ever, but why do smart people like Franken act as though he is the best ever? It's not because of they're smart and it's not because they are correct. Bill Clinton, obviously, is a slime who time and time again humiliated his office. Agreed, Republicans wasted this countries time and energy on affairs that were none of their business and Clinton did have some excellent policies (as well as policies, such as cutting welfare, that were straight robbed from the GOP playbook), but that doesn't change that Clinton was a slime. So let's get over it and let's get over William Jefferson Clinton.
Rating:
Summary: Evil cannot abide Mockery
Review: The truth is, this book could have been stronger. More powerful attacks on the neo-propaganda machine include "What Liberal Media" and "The Bush Dyslexicon", both more accurate (Mr. Frankens doesn't let the exact facts stand in the way of a good joke), factual, and not nearly as readable (Sorry Mr Alterman).That said, they certainly set up Franken to deal a good public blow to an increasingly arrogant right that has "gotten away with it" so long they've forgotten this isn't a natural law. The fact that Fox, under pressure from Bill O'Reily, actually thought they could sue Al Franken and his publisher on the basis of his using "Fair and Balanced" on the cover is an example of just how out of touch with reality the far right has gotten. Al Franken succeeds in puncturing the bombast with facts and humor, of people that would simply scream louder when confronted with facts. He is not only correct, factually, but he is honest, keeping the facts in context. He admits when he was wrong (The chapter on Bob Jones university would *never* have made it to print if a Right wing author did such a thing to a left wing university.) with a refreshing candor. In other words, a refreshing change from people that can't tell obvious forged letters, claim to be independents but are registered republicans, or brag about having 780 footnotes, but actually have page upon pages of endnotes that actually have nothing to do with the claims they make.
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Summary: The Scales of Justice
Review: The two words that best describe this book are fair and balanced.
Rating:
Summary: Catharsis
Review: The ultimate appeal of this book is expressed in one word: catharsis. There was even a group catharsis from participation in the large scale purchasing of this book with the publicity engendered by the Fox/Faux News lawsuit. You know, someone won out not only in court, but in the old marketplace of ideas. Franken's book doesn't offer that much more to an aging sixties (or was it seventies?) generation member. Just look at the list of recommended authors and related books this website offers. While a minority viewpoint in the bookstores here in South Carolina (and I assume even in New York), it's not like it can't be found. The information is not new to me. However, my 17 year old son found tons of information new to him. He took it to study hall every day; I had harbored vague hopes of being the first to review this book. But besides catharsis, I hope this book can help educate a new generation, which gets its news information so much from humorists. The catharis did not stop with the purchase, or with the title, or with the funny introduction, but is maintained throughout the book. Not every moment, but more than you typically find in political humor. It's the style that differentiates this book--Franken's willingness to get down in the dirt and fight the right wing on its own unfair and unbalanced terms. But always with a wink, so that his irony is labeled irony; he claims to be a comedian, not a politician, not a journalist. As the right wing media does. For the reader, it's a bit like watching mud wrestling, a guilty pleasure. The book does have its surprisingly humble moments. There are two (and I believe that is the final tally) issues about which Franken confesses to having been wrong. I'd rather not spoil the moments by going into detail. As it is, those moments add substance and nuance to what otherwise would mostly be a long rant. Mostly, of course, it's a long rant. And for that, I say, "Thanks, I needed that."
Rating: 
Summary: The Great American Snit Continues
Review: The war of words and battle for audience among the TV/radio/print political "commentators" rages on. The funniest part of the battle is not the slings and arrows between "liberals" and "conservatives", but the fact that the Limbaughs, O'Reillys and Frankens of the world actually think that they're important to the political process, that their rants have any meaning. Consider that the highest rated TV blowhard, Mr. O'Reilly, gets but a smidge more than 1% of the 107 million American TV households to turn into him indicates that this ideological battle royale is a rather intimate event.
So, the release of yet another political blowhard's book comes along, and because he has the gall to crib the Fox "news" channel's slogan, he's front page news. But is the book actually any good? Compared to his conservative colleagues, no more so or less so. Like Ann Coulter, he's not above callous and childish name calling. Like Bill O'Reilly, he's every bit as pompous in faux-academia. Like Limbaugh (and, frankly ALL celebrity political "commentators"), he's like a kid in the back row of a classroom, shooting spit-balls.
But unlike the conservative tome-loaders, at least he makes no bones about the fact that (a) he's a punk, and (b) he's screwing around as much as he's pontificating. And, with that, it's actually pretty funny.
Of course, if the liberal vs. conservative cage match is serious to you, then regardless of your leanings, this book will anger you. If you're like me, though, and think the nightly blatherings from these so-called pundits are really pretty funny on their own, then this book will be a real entertaining read.
Rating: 
Summary: a pretty good read, though bogged down in statistics in part
Review: The whole book is a pretty good read, though it does get bogged down in statistics in parts. And as Franken also admits, it is kind of the same thing as Eric Alterman's book, but funnier (and probably reaching more people). Many of the points have been made before, but need to be made again until enough people listen and we get Bush out of the White House. Fortunately, thanks to Bill O'reilly and Fox news, Franken hardly needed to publicize the book at all and could just sit back and watch it float to the top of the bestsellers.
Rating:
Summary: Franken is a welcome voice of dissent
Review: The world needs Al Franken. In fact, we could use a few of them. Comedian, Harvard Fellow and Liberal commentator Al Franken is a man who has the courage, wit, and smarts to not just stand up to the Conservative Right, but to do so intelligently, and with a sense of humor (something the right is wholly devoid of). In this book, he blows the lid off of the selective editing, obfuscation, and downright untruth often used by the Right Wing when it comes to advancing their political and social agenda. He uses factual reasoning and extensive bibliographical resources to illustrate beyond a shadow of a doubt that the Right...hardly ever is. He reserves particular vitriol for Conservative media figureheads like Ann Coulter, Bill O'Reilly, Bernie Goldberg and Sean Hannity, punching holes in their inflated facades, and letting the air out of their needlessly overblown egoes. But it's not as though the Bush administration gets off light, either. He takes the Bush team to task on the economy, environment, foreign policy, and education. His chapter on pre-9/11 intelligence failings is seriously eye-opening, and worth the price of admission alone; as are his views on the Wellstone Memorial (or lack thereof), Fox News, and "liberal bias in the media." Franken also dismisses the "with us or against us" domestic policy of the Bush administration, wherein voices of dissent are universally (and incorrectly) colored as being borne of anti-American sentiment, by drawing an apt analogy: Liberals don't hate America, Liberals love America just as much as conservatives do. It's just that Conservatives love America like a four-year-old loves her mommy: Totally, completely, and without question. Mommy is Wonder Woman. She is perfect, beautiful, and can do no wrong. Liberals, however, love America like a spouse: Affectionately, but with maturity; and with an understanding that he or she is human, and will have faults that must be overcome or overlooked in the larger picture. All in all, "Lies, and the Lying Liars Who Tell Them" is a necessary thorn in the flesh of the blustery bullies who would rather shout down than debate, rather win an argument than state the facts, and tell only part of the story rather than admit their dearly-held "truths" are actually cut from whole cloth. If you're offended, then it likely means you're part of the problem.
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