Rating: 
Summary: Brilliant and hysterically funny!!!!
Review: This is an amazing book!! It is hysterically funny, and such a relief to read intelligent and insightful commentary about the sad state of our "Presidency". It really makes one wonder if the right-wing is truly evil or just incredibly misguided. In any case, it shows some true villians for what they are, so laugh and enjoy and think a bit.
Rating:
Summary: What a fun and disturbing read!
Review: This is an amazing book. Some nights it's hard to get to sleep after reading a few chapters because I'm so upset at how much the right manipulates and distorts the truth to suit their agenda. Franken has a great style and more often than not I find myself smiling or laughing while reading. The exception was the chapter on the tragic death of Senator Wellstone. Having met him, it touched a nerve and I found my eyes welling up with tears. I definately reccomend this book and I will absolutely read other books by Franken.
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Summary: Left Wing Comedy With A Purpose
Review: This is an amazingly hysterically funny book for any left-winger. If you staunchly support conservative politicians, this will NOT be the book for you. If you are a clean-air-breathing, child-educating, free-speech-loving liberal, I would highly recommend this book. Not only did it make me laugh (and laugh, and laugh...) but Franken brings up some interesting and pertinent points about conservative politicians, commentators, think tanks and media. Intelligent comedy.
Rating: 
Summary: al franken and liberals are going to disappear from earth...
Review: This is an astute response on my part to the unfearing "challenge" by one of the thousands of faceless, liberal cronies impersonating "reviews" on this page. One of them actually had the audacity to intimidate people he, self-damagingly and nervously, thinks are all cons, based on their 1-star ratings, to provide proof of Frankenut's liberal lies. I think he even went so extreme, in his increasingly crumbling presumption, to claim that he only ever saw one internet site that offered some form of expose of Frankenut. Not so. At Townhall's website, columnist Michelle Malkin wrote a piece from August 22, detailing Frankeninny's veracity problems.
Here is one of the most notorious and lucid exposes of Al Franken's lies. Just type in this handy little URL into your web address bar: townhall.com, forward slash, columnists, forward slash, michellemalkin, forward slash, mm20030822.shtml You should get the filthy dirt on Al Franken pretending to be the self-righteously moral "martyr", leading his fellow insane left-wingers out of the desert, by unscrupulously stigmatizing the right as being the worst liars. Yet this four-eyed, coke-bottle glasses, middle-aged NERD is such a soullessly shameless LIAR, that he ACTUALLY used deceptive tactics to generate material WHILE writing this book which he falsifies is solely about right-wing "dishonesty". To preview, a little, within that provided address, Franken resorts to about 4 sub-lies within his gigantically broad lie of using Shorenstein Center stationary (that's right, the same cancerously twisted, radical left-wing elitists who helped compose his "book") to dupe John Ashcroft into sharing his experiences with abstinence. Franken again lied that Ashcroft's personal story would be used in a book he was writing about abstinence programs in our public schools. Which are, AGAIN, more lies based on original L-I-E-S. This brings me full circle to the dissolutely unprincipled "testimonies" from all these liberal-wrecked reviewers. How in the HELL can these unconscientious creatures NOT ONLY keep blackening the right as "viciously distorting everything", but also keep praising their superficially veneered, hero-jacka$$ Franken as a rolemodel of virtue?!?! Especially when this blatantly obscene lecher used falsehood as the methods with which to compose a "book" that supposedly points the finger at everyone EXCEPT for him and his side???
Rating: 
Summary: Book #16 in the development of a cynic
Review: This is an entertaining and very readable partisan rip against the usual suspects on the Right side of what passes for political discourse today in America. Franken is annoyed at the unanswered attacks by the talking heads on the conservative talk show circuit and blasts back with both barrels, citing tons of statistics, facts and stories to counter their arguments and support his own. I enjoyed reading it, agreed with some of it, and learned some new information. BUT....... Here is my problem: I have recently been reading a number of these popular one-sided "fact-telling" books such as Sean Hannitys' "Let Freedom Ring", Dick Morris' "Off with their Heads", John Stossel' "Give me a Break", Bill O'Reilly's "No-Spin Zone", and a few others. If you read any of these one-note books (Liberal is always right!, or Conservative all the way!!) you will not be reading anything that is even slightly objective yet they all try to take that tone. They all sound reasonable, at least in spots, with plenty of polls and statistics and stories to support their points. But they can't all be correct. When you read several of them at the same time it starts to be overwhelmingly obnoxious. Well, quit shouting at me! If you have a point, lay it out there, but no single perspective is always correct with the other side always wrong. It just doesn't work that way in the real world. So why do they do it? To sell books, or on the TV shows and talk shows, to sell soap or whatever products the ads are promoting. Just remember that and don't allow yourself to get swept up in the muckraking. One funny side effect that happened as I developed a huge skeptical chip on my shoulder toward these self-appointed partisan pundit books from both destructive sides of the political spectrum; I was reading a cookbook (from Cooks Illustrated, a great series) where they were talking about the process they went through to arrive at the best way to cook chicken breasts. I read it, and thought, "Yeah, right, that's just a one-sided explanation to prove your point". Bottom-line, read Franken or any of these guys purely as entertainment and don't get your decision-making information from them.
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.
Rating:
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!
Rating:
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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