Rating: 
Summary: Al is no honest broker
Review: Franken starts with a sincere sounding mission of proving the lies of the right wing media (Coulter, Limbaugh, Hannity) but then loses all of his credibility. He claims for example that Ann Coulter "lied" when she said that Norman Thomas, the socialist presidential candidate, was Evan Thomas's (the Newsweek editor) father. He even has a satirical dialogue with Evan in which Evan denies the statement as if it were preposterous, wholly without factual basis! What Franken never admits is that Norman Thomas was Evan's grandfather, not father, context which would turn Coulter's "lie" into something less, such as a mistake. Thus Franken commits the very duplicity he so earnestly complains that the right is guilty of.
Rating: 
Summary: Didn't know to laugh or to cry
Review: Franken takes a fairly straightforward approach to dissecting and refuting the right wing's attacks on moderates and centrists (c'mon, there aren't any true liberals left in washington). He exposes Hannity, Coulter and others for their blatant lack of honesty and sloppy techniques.
Thanks to Fox, he's riding this one to the bank.
BTW - If Fox is so concerned about trademark protection, how come every friday I hear Hannity say "if it's friday, it must be Miller Time...". Seems to me, the beer folks have the TM on that phrase.
Only criticism is that some of the points he makes are nitpicks. There are enough compelling arguments in the book that he could have left out the more ambiguous ones, which will just leave the right a place for their arguments.
Rating: 
Summary: It's about time...
Review: Franken takes the hard right conservative press to task by holding it up to a simple standard--do they tell the truth when they make political arguments? He's not painting political conservatives as a whole with a broad brush--are you reading Anne Coulter?--but focusing on specific commentators--Coulter, Bill O'Reilly, Sean Hannity and so on and the ways in which they misrepresent some facts and outright lie about others. Anne Coulter says the NYTimes ignored the death of Dale Earnhart, Sr., for three days and then finally wrote a snobbish article about NASCAR? Franken reproduces the front page from the NYTimes the day after his death, which features a straigthforward news story about the death. Throughout the book, he does this over and over and over and over. And he throws in some pretty funny jokes along the way.A criticism of the book will inevitably be that he picks up on a few minor discrepancies and blows them out of proportion. This misses the point. In accumulating a library of lies large and small, Franken shows how cynically people of poor conscience but great resources affect our national political debate. These lies are echoed throughout the national press, which is too lazy to bother to check the facts themselves in their search for ratings or readers, another argument he makes throughout, that the press does not have a liberal bias but a corporate bias--whatever is cost-efficient and brings readers/viewers is what is printed/airs, not whatever serves a liberal bias. The danger, of course, is that like Hannity, Coulter, O'Reilly and the rest, Franken will preach to his own choir. What separates his work from the others, though, is that it is not only passionately argued but factually accurate, something people of good will have to respect. Since I got the book two days ago, I've read it late into the night after putting my 3 year old son to bed. I fear for his sake the emerging Dickensian importance on individual fortunes at the expense of the common good. It's unAmerican, as Teddy Roosevelt, last century's greatest republican president, argued many times. I really believe that if Bush thought he could get away with it, he'd repeal the 40-hour workweek (he has in part, by allowing employers to reclassify broad groups of workers to avoid paying them overtime), the minimum wage and maybe even child labor laws. Boring topics, but important to those who work, which admittedly is fewer people these days. Franken's books helps cut through the pollution of false statements and aims to reframe political debate in this country based on the simple premise that one should tell the truth. And face exposure for not doing so. This is a much mroe serious and angry book than Rush Limbaugh... It's every bit as funny too.
Rating: 
Summary: funny but erroneous
Review: Franken tells his tale with plenty of wit and sarcasm, but those looking for actual facts will find few clearcut ones here. Franken's research is sloppier than those he lampoons, which makes him a bigger liar than they are.
Rating:
Summary: Exceptionally funny and fact filled!!
Review: Franken tells it like it is! Anyone with any level of high school or college level research experience will be able to see how he exposes the lies of Ann Coulter, Bill O'Reilly and the rest of the right wing nut press.
Rating:
Summary: At Last....lies verified!
Review: Franken through humor and wit, takes the rants and statements of record and proves them to be lies. He goes so far as to phone people quoted in Coulters book, something she should have done. He exposes the personalities of the Fox bunch including Colmes who I suspect is paid to be a straight man for Hannity. Small wonder Fox tried to keep the book off the market. The one common denominator the right wingers all have is anger. I heard someone say anger covers fear. My question is what are they all afraid of? The truth?? Not only are they all angry, they are mean, nasty, hypocritical, selfish, and self serving. And they can't take criticism. They can dish it out but what whiners they are when it comes back. They can't debate or discuss either. Try to get Coulter to answer a question and she gives you sarcasm, maybe that's why she is not on t.v. as much and is now giving speeches to boy scout rallies. If Frankens book is not truthful...let the whiners prove it. His exposure of the chicken hawks is priceless, and explaining the war was won with the Clinton military is something no one else would attest to, except Cheney. The horse and the drone was paid for by the last administration...indisputable facts. Thanks Al, it felt good to laugh again.
Rating:
Summary: FRANKEN'S ROLE AS HEY-BOY
Review: Franken was a mere hey-boy when at SNL and scored heroin for Belushi, et.al. So now this narcotics trafficker and enabler is a political expert? a satirist? i don't think so. he is merely a hate-filled opportunist and extreme left wing radical.
Rating:
Summary: Franken hits targets effectively
Review: Franken's book does an excellent job of exposing the lies that many right wingers have succeeded in foisting on the American people for too long, and does so with a good dose of humor. The introduction in which Franken satirizes the claim by all too many zealots on the right that God told them to do what they are doing or chose them to carry out his will (apparently including Bush) is especially effective and funny.
Rating:
Summary: Loved it! Funny. Backed up with HARD facts!
Review: Franken's book is a breath of fresh air in an atmosphere poisoned by gastrointestinal emanations from the likes of Anne Coulter. In her book she claims liberals' loyalty to the United States has to be questioned and implies that those who don't toe a right wing line are committing treason. I am utterly amazed someone would stoop so low as to come up with crap like that. The very essence of a democracy is the ability to freely speak out and oppose the government. It is the most un-treasonous thing you can do in a freedom loving democarcy. If you aren't allowed to do that - you no longer have freedom and you no longer live in a democracy. Following her line of thinking, I guess we better throw that traitor Wesley Clark into the brig at Guantanamo Bay. And I'll bet Joe Lieberman is actually an al Quaeda operative just waiting to take power so he hand the country over to bin Laden. Let's see . . In the last presidential election over half the votes were not for the current administration . . so I guess over half the voters committed treason. That's what . . . 70 . . . 80 million people? (OK, I don't have the exact figure, but in any case, we'll have to start building a few more cells at Gitmo to hold all those traitors.) And, gee, didn't our military just overthrow the governments in two countries that were one-party autocracies? I thought that was the sort of stuff we were fighting against. So, if our military is going around the world overthrowing one-party countries where it actually IS an act of treason to speak against the government . . . what does that make HER for advocating we have that system here? What's wrong with this woman? Was she weaned on lemons? Where is she coming up with this b.s.? Franken is right. She is a nut case. Good job Al. Looking forward to your next book.
Rating:
Summary: Hard to fault the actual record
Review: Franken's book is a powerful dose of honesty about Right Winger's claims. He has enlisted a crew of 15 fact checkers from Harvard's Kennedy School of Government to double check every claim he makes in the book, and does he ever take the wind out of the sails of elected, appointed officials, and right wing pundits! Talk about correcting "revisionist history"! He takes on the shackled press, too. His crew peels off layers of pejudicial myth and right wing folk tales and "reports" found in "news" papers, heard and seen on media. The blatant dishonesty and hidden agendas stand there bare faced and looking as bad as they are. Personally I reacted to his profanity and vulgarity very sourly. It's not just tasteless, it takes away fromthe power of his work and gives emotional sanction to disregard this very serious work, if not to dismiss it all as sophomoric wallowing in nastiness' just because I can.' I think Chapter 29 the "Operation Chicken Hawk" gets all the animous and bile slathered around so completely I begin to feel the purpose is the "slathering", not to "expose" the personalities presented in the chapter. The crew does very well in that department all through the book, that chapter can be dispensed with. Chapter 37 "The Gospel of Supply side Jesus" is one of the more biting, hurting satires exposing right wing/GOP mentality I've ever struggled through. Mr. Franken tells us he's working on a book focusing on President Bush intended for release in October, just before elections. I hope he manages to leave out the vulagarity and profanity so the power of facts, and the clarity of the record can be seen clearly and with power not murked up by nastiness. Let the record and facts speak for themselves. (I understand an "unofficial biography" will come out in the same time frame by another author.) This book is well worth the time to read. The factual information and the careful, careful proof texting and fact checking make it difficult to rebut. If you go ad hominem- insult the writer, you're disregarding the writing.
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