Lies and the Lying Liars Who Tell Them: A Fair and Balanced Look at the Right

Rating:
Summary: Just Sad Really
Review: First, Franken's career has been going so bad that the only way he could sell this book was to put Bill O'Reilly and Fox News on the cover. They should take that as a compliment. Indeed, with all the publicity that Franken's cowardly personal attack of O'Reilly has generated, Bill should recieve a share of the profits. So, what are the great LIES that Franken points to? Here it comes folks...I'll save you the cost of the book: Bill mistakenly called an award that his former show had won by another name. WOW, SHOCKER, what a liar he must be. But the logic in this book is so bad that even if you grant Franken this part of the argument it still doesn't prove his point. Even if O'Reilly deliberately said the wrong name of an award;What in the world does that have to do with him being fair and balanced about politics? How does calling an award by another name mean that one is biased towards the right or the left? Someone could "lie" about an award and be a liberal, or be a conservative, or be in the middle. In the end, as usual, Franken proved: Nothing. Well, with the exception of the fact that his intellect is so limited that even with 15 Harvard students writing the book for him, he still couldn't make a coherent argumnet.

Rating:
Summary: Fair and Balanced, indeed
Review: First, I would like to take issue with one point made by another reviewer, who makes a false dichotomy between believers in Science (liberals), and believers in God (conservatives). This statement, which is tangential at best to anything Franken says in the book, screams out for correction.

When secular liberals embrace the false dichotomy of Science vs. God, they play right into the hands of the so-called "Christian" Right. People like Jerry Falwell have spent millions of their ill-gotten wealth to spread the message that they are the only true Christians (in other words, that God allows them to decide whom to exclude from heaven). Unfortunately, this tactic has been working. There is a Christian Left (founded 2000 years ago by some guy named Jesus), but to listen to the mainstream "liberal" media, you wouldn't guess it. Journalists are always referring to the "Christian" vote, as if all Christians (or indeed, anyone at all who follows the teachings of Jesus) let Ralph Reed tell them how to vote on, say, a local highway bond issue. (This alone is ample evidence of the lack of "liberal bias" in media.)

Come on, now. Do you really want to split the vote in this country between "Democrats" and "those who believe in God"? The "Christian" Right would love to do this! Liberals who really want to give the Right fits would do well to get up early on Sunday morning and walk into a mainline (non-fundamentalist) Christian church. Then, do it again every Sunday. It isn't as scary as you think, and you may even meet nice people with whom you have much in common. If even a million of us did this, we would be hitting the Right right where it hurts.

Franken does an excellent job in demolishing the hypocrisy of the "Christian" Right, better than most. In chapter 26, he demonstrates how easy it is, even for a Jewish non-Christian, to beat a self-proclaimed Christian of the conservative persuasion (in this case, Commerce Secretary Don Evans) in an argument on the New Testament (in this case, the book of Acts). This is often easier than you think.

Franken's Supply-Side Jesus comic strip sounds outrageously disrespectful, but if you look at the whole thing, it does Jesus proud. At the end, Pilate asks the crowd whom they would condemn, Supply-Side Jesus, or Jesus of Nazareth. Supply-Side Jesus wins his freedom by bribing the crowd with tax cuts, and Jesus of Nazareth is crucified. This is actually dismally close to the position of many on the "Christian" Right.

Franken's book is not about the religious right, however. After all, the agenda that motivates most of the Right in this country has little to do with Christianity. If you want to read a book about the hypocrisy of the religious right, try Stealing Jesus by Bruce Bawer. As a side benefit, you will hear from an actual practicing Christian some genuinely appealing arguments for Christianity (hint: heaven and hell have nothing to do with it).

The real meat of Franken's book is the factual refutation of the shameless lies of some on the Right, he has done an admirable job. Let's start with the title: Lies and the Lying Liars who tell them: A Fair and Balanced Look at the Right. Now there's a title that goes straight for the jugular! The problem with titles that go straight for the jugular, of course, is that they are impolite and uncivil.

The Right has a double standard when it comes to "civil discourse". Right-winger Ann Coulter releases a book loudly claiming the 50% of Americans who hold progressive views are guilty of Treason!!! Right-wingers everywhere applaud, saying we suspected it all along, saying anyone who dares to dispute this fact is a liar. Al Franken displays a similar title, and right-wingers everywhere are indignant. They can dish it out, but they can't take it. Just ask Bill O'Reilly.

Fair and balanced, indeed.

Rating:
Summary: Hilarious compendium of factual rebuttals to right wing lies
Review: First, I'd like to start with a review of the reviews. I just slogged through as many of the 90 or so 1-star reviews of this book as I could take and did not find a single one that presented documented refutation of the facts in "Lies ...". All I read were opinions about the Mr. Franken's opinions. The whole point of the book is about the Right's distortion of FACTS, yet not a single Righty can find fault with Franken's facts; they just disagree with his OPINIONS.

And you don't have to agree with those opinions to enjoy this book. It is funny and it is informative. I especially appreciated his exposure of the pro-business economic biases of the mainstream press.

So buy a copy for yourself, and another one for the Dittoheads in your life.

Rating:
Summary: Reviews not quite balanced
Review: First, it makes sense that most of the reviews are favorable because the subject matter is attractive to those who would favor the book. Second, the negative reviews that I read were generally short, unsophisticated, childish defenses of the nearly deified President Bush and his party. I have not been able to corroborate the clarifications Franken makes in the book, but they do reek of authenticity. The strongest argument for the book's authenticity is that there has been no high profile discrediting by those critized.

The critics of the book and those that seem to blindly support the conservatives will some day learn that they are but "political cannon fodder" for an agenda that cuts them out of the profits. It is the people in the heartland of American that are the strongest supporters of the Conservative agenda, but that benefit the least. It is those people that stand in the unemployment lines and have seen their retirment plans vanish that the Conservatives have duped into giving their support.

Not to worry though. There is zero chance that Bush will be reelected in part because of Franken's book, but more because he will lose the popular vote by a large margin. Almost all of those that voted for him because they were mad at Clinton will vote for the opposition.

Rating:
Summary: BEST political book of the year, BY FAR!
Review: First, let me say that this is the first Al Franken book I've ever read and I have never been a fan of his, until now that is. In fact, I remember him from SNL and never liked his skits. I thought he was stiff and not very funny. What a wonderful surprise the book is for me! I guess his delivery on SNL just didn't appeal to me or something, this book is GREAT! It's funny and compelling all at the same time. Starting off by crediting God for writing the book and comparing that to born again President Bush's religious zeal started me giggling. There are so many humorous gems throughout the book, subtle dead pan stuff too, I could go on forever. Here's just one I loved: He talks about the Hannity & Colmes show and prints Hannity's name extra large and bold and Colmes' extra small each time he mentions either of them. He uses this as an extra illustration on the show's unfair and unbalanced slant, which belies FNC's "fair & balanced" mantra. For the hard core political junkie his in depth destruction of many(if not all) of the most popular right wing talking points is very thorough. He assembled a crew of 14 Harvard students for research and the results are quite impressive. One thing that is very refreshing is that he's not vicious unlike some of his opposing view counterparts are in their books. I'm a fan and viewer/listener of O'Reilly and even though Franken is pretty tough on him, he is pretty fair. I viewed the semi-famous C-Span book tour "debate" between Franken & O'Reilly and Al's explantion of his side of it was quite civil. His chapter on Bill does make you think the O'Reilly may be a little less genuine than he proclaims but due to Franken's fairness in writing my opinion of No-Spin Zone man has not diminished much-Sorry Al.
I must say that if you are a fan of politics and have a sense of humor, this is a must buy book. It should really get more than 5 stars. Anyone who gives it less either has no sense of humor or is one of the lying liars...who let's be honest, probably didn't even read the book.

Rating:
Summary: Great book, and an even better tape
Review: First, this is a great book in general. It will probably annoy lovers of people like Bill O'Reily, Rush Limbaugh and the like, but if you're somewhat liberal to middle-of-the-road, or conservative but open to hearing the other view, you will really enjoy this and learn from it.

You'll learn from it because unlike most in this business, Franken really does his research. He had a team of interns from Harvard working on all the facts for this. The 2 effects of this are (1) he gets his facts straight which is refreshing, and (2) the content is very valuable -- for instance, the chapter "Operation Ignore" on the Bush Administration's approach to the terrorism threat covers Richard Clarke and his warnings well before he became popular news with his new book and the 9-11 hearings recently.

You'll enjoy it because Franken is so darn funny. Most who do the research that he does would write a fairly dry, scholarly book. Franken goes the extra mile to package the information in a very amusing way. It's great to laugh your way through something while learning so much.

Finally, I have the book and the tape version. I read most of the book first and then switched to the tapes. The book is great, but the tapes are even better because Franken does the reading himself and his sense of timing and comedic delivery makes the whole thing even better.

Rating:
Summary: But there are so many more lies!
Review: First, this is a great book. But there are so many more lies it does not talk about! Such as the conservative nonsense that North Korea is a bad country. It's a great country. They at least believe in the equality of all and live by those principles. North Korea may not be practical some of the time and maybe some unbridled individuals must be sacrificed for the common good, but North Korea sure is moral! I also think they have a right to have nuclear weapons and even use them if Bush and his cronies threaten them.

Here's another lie! Conservatives try to say that environmentalists have caused a holocaust by banning DDT and letting millions die of malaria which DDT almost wiped out. Rubbish! The number is no where near millions. It's probably just thousands.

One again, great book. Must read.

Rating:
Summary: Rambo of the Left, Albo Strikes One For The Cause
Review: Firstly I'll confess I'm not only a Democrat I'm an officer in the Party serving at the Congressional District level in Minnesota. I'm probably more of a Progressive Blue Dog Democrat in that I'm conservative fiscally but not socially. So that is the perspective or "spin" from which I write this.

I really think it is unfortunate the extent to which American politics has become polarized in George Bush's America. There is a real unwillingness to compromise or to recognize that the other side may have some good points and I think it is this attitude that actually got Mr. Franken riled up again (last time he was riled he wrote "Rush Limbaugh Is A Big Fat Idiot").

I'll confess I'm not totally hostile to conservatism, but what I respect is more the old school conservatism than this Neocon phenomena we are seeing today. After the war came to this country in 2001 another attack took place here at home, it was an attack on everything having to do with the left wing. I think "Political Correctness" has it's place and just like right wing issues like "State's Rights" it can be carried too far by people of poor judgment and sensibilities. The primary problem with people like Anne Coulter and Rush Limbaugh is that they are answering the excesses of the left with excesses of the right and it does not serve the common good. It serves to divide America in time of war.

I think after 911 the country shifted to right for understandable reasons. The attacks were horrific, terrorism is about fear itself and represented a new and terrible change in our perception of the world. Conservatism is to some extent about mitigating the pace of change, sure it gets snarled up in modern discourse on various issues but that is what the basic notion is. Unfortunately as you go further right you approach something that leaves traditional American conservatism behind. You approach something that allows for only one point of view and in the name of patriotism seeks to purge opposing viewpoints. It's hardly new, perhaps the most famous examples were the Alien and Sedition Acts in the World War One era. Right wing radio doesn't talk about this gray area. It's actually one of those enigmas of American history that the Supreme Court has not ruled on extensively and where we as a nation are still defining what we are. I think it's important to really point out that not all conservatives are happy with the Patriot Act and other contributing factors to the break down in cooperation between the left and right in 21st Century America. I will say this, those who are perpetuating it need to be called on it because America can not afford to be divided in a time of a new type of World War.

That's why I think it is perhaps only natural that the man who most directly addresses it is a nationally known satirist. Who else but a comedian to interject himself in a subject this serious? Who else to test and maintain first amendment guarantees but a humorist, even if the book is really on a very serious subject. The book is in some respects a populist rebuttal of the attempted purge of the left on the part of some radical right wing elites in the wake of the 911 attacks.

One has to consider what it is that provokes Franken to write books like this. He's criticized for the title of it but he's a satirist and chose the title for a reason. Many of the people who attack him have been saying and doing largely the same thing, the title leads to a guaranteed "pot calling the kettle black" situation. I'm immersed in politics, I follow it, I read an immense amount of the discourse on both the right and the left. The thing about Lies is it is new in the sense that it does what the right wing media has been doing for many years. It takes what they have been saying and effectively turns the tables and reverses it. It's researched by a group of grad students (which may or may not be good if you are familiar with grads) but it is factual. However in a very real sense it is not exclusively about the "facts", there is a larger satirical point to this just as there was with Franken's book about Limbaugh. Limbaugh has a habit of calling people names and where he got into trouble with Franken is when he called 13-year-old Chelsea Clinton a "dog" on national television. Franken took this as bullying and so he did what a 13 year old girl could not do, he called Rush Limbaugh a "Big Fat Idiot". Again with this book the irony is in the "turn around is fair play" aspect. Rush and others have been calling names for years including calling a teenage girl ugly and calling all liberals liars, depraved, sissies, and immoral.

Well as it turns out there is enough to go around and in addition to the "liberal media" you had best watch the bias in the "conservative media" because it is if anything more pronounced. I'm somewhat amused because all the dittoheads and so forth seem to think Al Franken invented this and don't appreciate that his satire can at times be far more sophisticated than that which was shown on SNL for 15 years. My advice: politically speaking look around you at how you are doing, your family, your neighbors, your community and make decisions based on that. Don't let talking heads like Limbaugh and O'Reilly make up your mind, just "factor" it in with a grain of salt. If you are a conservative don't dismiss this out of hand, take into consideration the context in which is was written and the larger but very simple statement it was intended to make (even if you disagree with some particulars of course).

Rating:
Summary: Something for Franken to think about...
Review: Firstly, you wouldn't have this bestseller if Fox News and some of its pundits didn't exist. Secondly, you're just making your name off of hurting other people. Yeah, sure, you have your emmys and stuff before you published your books, but I never heard of you until you called Rush Limbaugh a big fat idiot on the hardback cover of your book. Thirdly, you lied at least seventeen times (according to frankenlies, dot, com) in LIES (pretty ironic I would say). That's more than Bill O'Reilly! Sorry, Al, but I'm still sticking with Fox News and Rush Limbuah.

Rating:
Summary: Who's Better, Who's Better, Who's Best?
Review: Folks with ultra-conservative views will avoid this book, but they shouldn't. It is a witty and insightful collection concerning the American political system. Sure, Franken takes particularly focused aim at conservatives, but none are without strong reason. Everyone has a great deal to learn from this book and if you can stand it, there is plenty of humor here. If Al Franken were to be stoic and straightforward, he would never have been published. If you can't stand the idea of purchasing this book, then just borrow it from the library. If you can't tolerant someone who has a different opinion than you, then go back to your TV. Al Franken is funny, clever and knows what he is talking about. This book may not change the world, but it may change a lot of uptight underwear. You may also want to read any book by Bill O'Reilly. It would make a good bookend to any of Franken's tomes. Note that Amazon reviewers commented over 500 times on O'Reilly's latest book, while this book has over 2,700. But, those are just numbers manipulated by someone other than Amazon.