Rating: 
Summary: Very Disappointing
Review: For an author of reputed intelligence and sophistication, this book is very disappointing. Resorting to name-calling and making outrageous and unsubstantiated assertions about public figures in the name of humor really denigrates this author and his subject matter to a sub-kindergarden level. This is really a shame. Do not waste your time with this book.
Rating:
Summary: Isn't it ironic
Review: Isn't it ironic, don't ya think. I think Alanis said it best in her hit song. Or maybe we should change it to hyprocritic. Now that Al has his own radio show he does the same things that he bashes Rush for in this book. I don't know how these guys sleep at night.
Rating: 
Summary: Al Franken is a big, fat poophead
Review: Very insighful book-I think I will vote for Mr. Franken for our next President.
Rating:
Summary: Al Franken
Review: Al Franken, you are a big fat idiot!!! Far less informed than you think.
Rating: 
Summary: A bit funny but fails to see class/racial angle
Review: Al Franken is a funny man - unlike most of the liberal/Left that managed to have lost its sense of humor by pushing political correctness. The PC mindlock pushes too many Americans into supporting the likes of Rush Limbaugh.I think Franken misses the point by just blasting Limbaugh and other "conservatives" like Pat Buchanan by calling them "evil racists", "NAZI anti semities etc". Limbaugh and other talk radio conservatives reach an audience of scared, angry, frustraded White Americans - mostly poor and working class White Americans who see terrible chanes in their communities. "Change" is not always "good". It is easy to just dismiss the views and interests of all poor and working class White Americans, or just all White Americans and say : "Who cares about them". "We hate them". But, an honest American would say that all Americans including poor and working class White Americans have rights - such as the right to live in a decent neighborhood free of crack dealers, rapists, pornographers, gang bangers, panhandlers, Islamic extremist terrorists here in the United States on unsupervised student visas. I don't think Limbaugh does much of anything good for working class White Americans, but that is his audience.
Rating:
Summary: Hysterical
Review: Probably the funniest book I have ever read, but also backed up with well researched political commentary.
Rating:
Summary: Al Franken is already cursed...
Review: There's nothing worse than an unfunny comic...except an unfunny comic who has somehow garnered an audience. This is a repulsive book. Its most serious flaw, aside from the half-truths, is that it's unfunny. I can't picture even a die-hard liberal laughing much at this garbage, the comedy of which is mostly insults and personal attacks on Repubs.
Note to Franken: comedy is often derived from cruelty, but cruelty is not comedy.
Besides, Limbaugh isn't fat anymore (Franken, however, still looks like the prototype for SNL alumnus Julia Sweeney's "Pat").
The most serious flaw in the book is Chapter 22, "The Reagan Years." It's more proof that victicrats got nothin' and why they usually flee from facts faster than Superman flees from Kryptonite. Franken's argument is that if you ignore all the other vast improvements that Reaganomics wrought, the poor had to pay more in "payroll taxes" (aka Social Security Taxes). Let's forget for the moment that Social Security was originally a victicrat-designed Ponzi scheme and in its present incarnation will fail around 2015. Franken claims that these payroll taxes devastated the poor while the rich got a free ride. Baloney. Here's some verifiable facts: "The poorest 20 percent of Americans experienced a 6 percent gain in real income in the 1980s and... suffered a 3 percent loss in income in the 1990s....Contrary to popular rhetoric, the wealthiest Americans did not pay less taxes; rather, they paid more taxes after the income tax rate cuts in 1981. In constant dollars, the richest 10 percent of Americans paid $177 billion in federal income taxes in 1980 but paid $237 billion in 1988. The remaining 90 percent of households paid $5 billion less in income taxes over this period. They earned more and they paid more. In fact, Federal Reserve Board member Lawrence Lindsey has shown that taxes paid by the wealthy were substantially higher than they would have been if the top tax rate had remained at 70 percent." Franken's deception is concluded by claiming "average wages" went down. While this is true, his conclusion doesn't factor in "the *total compensation per hour*--a measure that includes wages *and* benefits--paid to a worker. Non-wage benefits have been an increasing share of total hourly worker compensation. In 1960, 9 percent of worker compensation was in the form of fringe benefits; in 1975, 16 percent of worker compensation was wage supplements; and by 1990, that percentage had risen to 20 percent. So although it is true that average real wages have been falling over the past 20 years, real compensation has been generally rising. The average real wage in 1990 dollars fell from about $11.00 an hour in 1980 to about $10.00 in 1988, a 9 percent decline. But real compensation per hour rose from $15.00 per hour in 1981 to $16.50 an hour in 1988."
That Repubs are human and fallible I don't deny. That Franken is unfunny, obnoxious and lacking in talent I also don't deny. The one-star was given in honor of Sun-Tzu's famous line: "Know your enemy." Clown Franken is only dangerous because so many 'gullibles' might believe him.
Rating:
Summary: Franken is Ugly Too
Review: Another bitter attempt by the liberals. I guess they will never get over the fact that Republicans went to war and won against a terrible regime. I have also read Franken's book criticizing the Fox News Channel and I must say that I see the same poor writing in this book. The title alone proves how immature liberals are, and that they don't have anything to say against republicans except by resorting to personal attacks. I have yet to read a leftist book that gets the author's various points across without exposing his own hypocrisy. The least you can do is think up a more catchy title that does more than just slander somebody's looks and personalities; try Dereliction of Duty: The Eyewitness Account of How Bill Clinton Endangered America's Long-Term National Security for example.
Rating:
Summary: Franken is all over the place in this easy read, ave rating
Review: Rush Limbaugh is a Big Fat Idiot Summary up front: I read this one because I think it is important to listen and absorb views contrary to major media people we are inundated with daily. I was initially thinking of highly recommending this book to everyone for that reason. It obviously is set up to be the antithesis of Rush Limbaugh commentary, but is probably not the best example, despite the title. A thorough and exhaustive vile personal attack on individual republicans, hilarious quips, albeit a very small portion of the book, combined with his thoughts on policy, which just don't go into enough depth and are many times contrary to each other. (Only a work by Barbara Streisand could have iterated more contradictions on political ideas.) While most may perceive this as a response to Rush's radio show, Rush Limbaugh, as I recall, tends to play several minutes of political speeches, then he comments on them. Franken many times paraphrases, or quotes a few select words or a phrase, then takes that completely out of context. Sometimes he gets things right without knowing it, and there's a great deal of context mutilation. I did expect something a little more concrete overall to combat the Gargantuan Radio Meister. I'm left thinking that Rush is more of a slanted satirical political commentator, and Franken just plain satirical. He does lay out his views, but their not particularly interesting insights into the liberal mind, and mostly things I've heard before. He is truly up there ranked with Dangerfield's liners, but I probably wouldn't be interested enough to read any more books by him, unless they covered a particular topic I was interested in, like this one. I'm sure there are Hollywood liberals who have more consistent and interesting views. Wish I had a recommendation for you. I rate this book "average", and easy to read. Go ahead an pick it up if you have the interest, it can't hurt. That's my take. Into the book: One example of a mis-quote that makes me wonder whether it is intentional, or if he spent a lot less time listening to Rush Limbaugh than he claims: Franken's very first argument: "Limbaugh was railing about how feminists believe that all heterosexual sex is rape..." No, this is the definition of Rush's penned word "feminazi." Rush has iterated great respect for feminists repeatedly. I haven't heard Rush in years, but things like this stick out like a sore thumb. I was immediately scratching my head after diving into this book. Franken quickly "refutes" Limbaugh, by listing government programs that work, and alleviate the problems they were created to solve. He gathered ideas from conservatives, and wrote, "social security" (HAHAHAHA), FBI (What? The FBI that prevented 9/11?) Rural electrification (not directly related, but how well has the federal regulation of power prevent disasters like the 2003 blackout?), and Medicare (later, on page 128 he argues Medicare costs are spiraling out of control...problem solved?) Franken's parody on someone else's joke is awful. He doesn't understand, one can't write hilarious pages of parody taking off on someone else's one liner. His discussion on Newt's sex joke, as just one example, will have you rolling your eyeballs. Franken's Constitutional Amendments are HILARIOUS, and should be instated immediately. He is a great, great one-line teller, for sure. I would expect Franken, with all the high profile people and tools he used for this book to have a truly good grasp of modern events, before commenting on others. He makes fun of Pat Robertson for talking about a central-credit agency from Revelations. Mr. Franken, have you gotten any new credit cares these past several years, with name changes on them? The banks are consolidating at an ALARMING rate, and we are STEAMROLLING towards a central bank (regardless of one's religious beliefs.) Boy does Franken NAIL this one-I don't see any liberal or conservative politicians saying what everyone else knows-He calls Social Security a TAX. And he argues that the poorest 20% of Americans are unfairly decimated by the social security tax. AMEN AL! "The sky is blue" is not more true than that! On pages 160/161 Franken demonstrates without attempting to that the major media has a severe left-wing bias. He does Nexis searching, combining conservative names with words that should never be used by an objective journalist. Ironic inclusion for this book. On page 173 by impugning Pat Buchanan, Franken basically says white people need to rule whites, and blacks need to rule blacks. This is purely racist, and I think most people will disagree, regardless of party. Page 175 I almost cannot believe. See, Pat Buchanan defended Demjanjuk's civil rights, and due process, so Al says he's a Nazi lover. If we ax civil rights for "bad" people, how soon before we ax them for "good" people. And Franken later on clamors incessantly against using capital punishment against innocent people. What to think after reading this? Page 210 Al argues with many points that Bill Clinton as governor and president was greatly successful in putting criminals away. Since this book was written, Clinton's last day has passed, on which he commuted a record number of prison sentences. Certainly the wrong thing to admire him for... Franken quotes Edmund Burke: "A legislature should make decisions based not on the passion of the moment or the whim of the people, but rather on his conscience and best judgment." But the man Al persistently mentioned was his favorite president, was widely renowned for making decisions based on polling numbers. So how should Washington make decisions Al, you've confused me on which method you prefer? Franken spends an entire 2-1/2 pages detailing how Bill Clinton was the greatest post-war president. Two and one half WHOLE pages, to respond to 4 years of Rush Limbaugh's criticism of Clinton. Disappointing in the least. Among the accomplishments, Franken credits Clinton for "peace in the middle east." (You be the judge...) On page 255 Franken details the same "stealth tactics" used by the democratic party in Florida's presidential race. But he only holds conservatives accountable for using such strategies. Thanks for reading.
Rating:
Summary: Incredibly funny and honest
Review: The reader from Manassas claiming that Al Franken's book is "satanic" is in severe need of deprogramming or more likely is a victim of mild retardation due to inbreeding. The book is incredibly funny and honest, something that just bugs the hell out of Republicans and their small minded, humorless ilk.
| 
