Rating: 
Summary: truths are indifferent to party labels
Review: This is an excellent book by Al Franken. It serves to throw some much needed light on the dark, murky and sealed world of the minority bent on inflicting maximum harm on the poorest and weakest while protecting and enriching the strong and rich.The book gives many good examples of the "I don't know and I care even less" mindsets in the fixated realities of the brain-washed spoonfed by the media for the herds. It is a perfect antithesis and a nice counterpoint to the teachings of Buddha which aim for union of wisdom and compassion. 28-sept-2003
iota@id-deficit.org
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Summary: FINALLY THE TRUTH IS TOLD
Review: This is an excellent read. When I received the book in the mail, I read it from cover to cover. It is a hilarious and sometimes painful look at the disaster our great country has become due to the lies of politicians and members the press who shamefully shill for the right. The discussion of the C-SPAN / O'Reilly fracas is worth the cost of the book. Way to go Al and keep up the good work.
Rating:
Summary: Keep in mind what you are reading.
Review: This is an exceptionally funny book. It is entertaining, well written, and a fairly light read. Even though it is fairly well documented, and although one may not always agree with his particular views, Frankin does a good job of supporting most of what he says. However, it is NOT an academic monograph on the state of political discourse in the United States. It is meant as satire, and it clearly is, just as Jonathan Swift was clearly writing satirically in A Modest Proposal in 1729. Keep some perspective and you'll proably learn more from this book than you will from spending the 6 hours it will take to read it watching CNN or, God forbid, Fox News.
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Summary: Our National Nightmare Is Ending!
Review: This is an extraodinary book, researched by a team of Harvard kids, written with great wit and passion. It would be a mistake to confuse Franken's work with a humor book. It is much better, much more comprehensive -- and more important than that. In fact it is a devastating, irrefutable attack on the cadre of elite right wing propagandists who have hijacked our national debate (and our newsmedia.) Franken exposes this pack of vampires and racists to the harsh light of day -- and the effect is extraordinary. Guaranteed, you will never, ever listen to the regurgitations of RNC blast faxes by the likes of O'Reilly, Coulter, Bozell, Gigot, the hate filled NY Post; Joe Scarborough, Will et al in the same way again. Franken hilariously skewers pitiful little Alan Colmes (whose name he will only write in the lower case) as a prop in Roger Ailes's propaganda machine (the nerdy little moderate who can barely get out a coherent sentence out) -- and he does so with facts and righteous and cheerful humor. The other day I was in New York, near 72nd street. A sign outside Gray's Papaya said: THANK YOU, AL FRANKEN. LET'S GET RID OF THESE CREEPS! I was braced by the appearance of this sign. It's coming, fellas. This country has experienced evil and corrupt periods before -- we purged ourselves of slavery. We stood up against the sexual hypocrisies and evil at the Salem witch trials. We stood up against corrupt and wicked leaders like Jefferson Davis and Nixon and Harding and Hoover. Ours is a strong country -- we can end this wicked era. And Franken's book, like Uncle Tom's Cabin before (I'm not kidding, it's that important) like the wicked satires of Swift and Dickens and Twain -- who exposed the wicked hypocrites and evildoers of their era) may be a crucial blow. Read Franken's wonderful book -- and if you're in New York, have one of the wonderful hotdogs at Gray's Papaya! Keep the faith!
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Summary: Some Suggestions to Al for the Paperback Edition...
Review: This is an important book - its virtues much outweigh its vices. A word on both below. If I hated Franken and wanted to go after him, I would have three examples from his book to use against him: 1. I would imply hypocrisy on his pro-affirmative action stance articulated in his chapter on race, because the photo of "Team Franken" is as whitebread as it gets (page 368). I can't believe he couldn't find an African-American or two at Harvard worthy of his team. This is the kind of thing from which Fox Network could get much mileage. 2. I would carefully read his endnotes and say some of his sources are easily suspect. For example, I have often heard from several sources (including comic Dennis Miller) that Hillary Clinton did not attend one memorial service for the 9/11 victims. This popular sound byte could use a sound Franken rebuttal. Unfortunately, Al's source for saying Hillary attended eleven events reads, "According to Senator Clinton's office, she's attended the following events..." Surely Franken could have come up with a less biased source to support Hillary Clinton than her own office. Fodder for Fox. 3. Uh, I guess there's only two. Oh, but I did find a typo, and unfortunately, it is in David McLaughlin's beautiful eulogy. On page 202, the second sentence in the paragraph which begins "The funny thing is Will and Paul really did work well together." You'll see it. Somebody call Rick Willett before the paperback. It's a shame to have this beautiful speech marred in any way. On the positive side, Franken is brilliant at using neo-conservatives' words against them. Critics of this book oftentimes do not give specific examples to refute Franken, but when Franken quotes Ann Coulter from her own book, and then reproduces the front page of the newspaper which shows her untruth, it is really hard to dispute. This is Franken at his best. Also, this book is laugh-out-loud funny at times. I read several passages aloud to my wife and a few co-workers. Franken is not afraid to be self-effacing, and this book will give a good laugh to those who are not infuriated by his ideology.
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Summary: Not only funny and irreverent, but wise, goofy & accurate!
Review: This is an unusual piece of humorous reportage. I expected a lot of laughs and a few insightful facts to back them up, but I got the opposite: loads of carefully researched data interwoven with humor and amazement. We need more Al Frankens. He, along with Jon Stewart and Bill Maher, are about the only mass-media folk who are not afraid to take unpopular stands. They are court jesters who know how to disable bullies with mockery and reality-checks. A hard act to follow. Can't wait till his next diatribe! --Jim Reed, author, DAD'S TWEED COAT: SMALL WISDOMS, HIDDEN COMFORTS, UNEXPECTED JOYS (Premium Press America). His website: jimreedbooks.com
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Summary: Another Hit-and-Miss Book
Review: This is another book I've reviewed that just doesn't make the cut. On one hand, this could have been a great statement on how truth is manipulated by speaker and media alike. Franken goes into detail about how stories are misconstrued and changed to fit the outlook intended for them by radio spokespeople or newspaper editors. However...in doing so, Al Franken only comes out as one of them. The book is also filled with some times unnecessary political commentary by Franken, and when I tried to look up the facts he mentioned I found many of them to either be half truths or misconstrued themselves. Yeah, Franken is funny, but he's also sarcastic and has a political agenda of his own. It seems almost like he only wrote this book to badmouth the other political agenda-minded speakers out there besides him. In short, this book should present a fine lesson to all authors out there: don't write a book about politically biased people when you are one.
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Summary: Al Franken is a Comic God
Review: This is another great book by Al Franken, the self proclaimed comedian/politician. I read it the first day I got it and loved it. If you liked his other books, you will love this one. It proves that most politicians are liars and Al Franken is the only one you can trust. I really LOVE this book. AL FRANKEN FOR PRESIDENT!
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Summary: .......and the lying Franken lies to the liars.......Yawn
Review: This is clearly a book written by yet another liberal for liberals, with a very tired agenda: let's make another attack on conservatives, Christians and Republicans. Ho hum yawn yawn. Another attempt to slap around people who stand up for what they believe in. It would have been funny to me if Franken would have used some real intelligence for this literary effort. Don't waste your money on this.
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Summary: The Best Book I've Read So Far This Year.
Review: This is definitely the best book I've read so far this year. It is thought provoking, sharp, intelligent, and very funny. It is not, however, as funny as Franken's earlier book, Rush Limbaugh is a Big Fat Idiot: And Other Observations. But then again, I've never read any other book as funny as that one, so it's not really a fair comparison. So, Lies seems very well researched, and makes claims which, if true, offer proof that the Bush II administration and many of the leading conservative commentators have lied repeatedly about the most central aspects of governing, including terrorism, the war in Iraq, economic policy, the environment, and a host of other issues and events. But isn't this just the other side of the Ann Coulter books which make the same claims about the left, and offer "proof" which is completely fabricated? No. First, as someone who keeps up with the news, it was easy for me to spot many of Coulter's fabrications on my own. Indeed, they were so numerous and striking, that I decided to write an article about them, and began taking notes. But before I really even got started, it occurred to me that I was probably not the only person who had noticed this. So, I did a Google search, and I found many, many Web pages which thoroughly, page-by-page, catalogued the literally hundreds of factual errors she makes in her books. So, naturally, I expected someone to do the same to Al Franken. He's doing it to them in this book, so he's practically daring someone to expose his errors. But I've searched and read articles with Google for more than four hours trying to find someone who will say that Franken made a single factual error in his book. But no one has reported a single one. Not one! And it's not because people love Al Franken and don't want to attack him. There are dozens, if not hundreds, of outrageous, vicious articles that verbally tear Franken apart in the most hateful ways. But none of them can point to a single factual error in the book. Some of them express doubts about his first-hand accounts. Some of them point to pranks he's pulled (that they only know about because he reports them in the book) as evidence of Franken's dishonesty. And many call him a liar with no evidence at all to support that claim. So, I'll just say it. Based on what you can read about in Franken's book, George W. Bush is a liar, and he knows it. Dick Cheney is a liar, and he knows it. Bill O'Reilly is a liar, and he knows it. Ann Coulter is a liar, and she knows it. (Actually, we all already knew about that last one even before Franken pointed it out). They lie again and again, and they keep getting away with it. The difference between the right and the left is not that the right lies in a way that helps the right, and the left lies in a way that helps the left. The difference between the right and the left is that the right tells lies, and the left tries to be fair. And we all know that's true. What are the so-called "liberal-biased" papers? The New York Times and the Washington Post-- the two most respected newspapers on the planet! And what is the conservative press? Fox News and the Washington Times and the New York Post, all of which are just a joke in terms of journalistic standards. Who are the heroes of the right-wing media? Rush Limbaugh! Ann Coulter! Sean Hannity! Bill O'Reilly! And these people make a living by just making things up. And they get caught over and over, and when they get caught, they say, "Oh, so in my 300 page book, all you could find was this one mistake," or "In my six and a half years on the air, all you could find was this one mistake." And they say that line again and again about dozens of different "mistakes," where by "mistake" they mean "lie". And, as Franken points out, the mainstream media, with it's supposed "liberal bias" is asleep at the switch. They are letting them get away with it, again and again, afraid that if they point out that only one side is always lying, then they'll appear to have a liberal bias. This is a great book. It is as entertaining as it is infuriating. You should read it.
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