Lies and the Lying Liars Who Tell Them

Title: Lies and the Lying Liars Who Tell Them
ISBN: 9780141017808
Author: Al Franken
Rating: ⭐ 3.82 (60 ratings, 6 reviews)

Having previously dissected the factual inaccuracies of a bellicose talk show host in Rush Limbaugh Is a Big Fat Idiot, Franken takes his fight to a larger foe: President George W. Bush, the Administration, Ann Coulter, Bill O'Reilly & scores of other conservatives whom are playing loose with the facts. It's a lot of ground to cover, as evidenced by the 43 chapters in Lies & the Lying Liars Who Tell Them, but the results are entertainingly insightful. Franken occupies a unique place in the modern political dialog as perhaps the media's only comedy writer-performer who's a Harvard fellow as well as a liberal political commentator. This unique & vaguely lonely position lends a charming quixotic quality to adventures such as a tense encounter with the Fox News staff at the Nat'l Press Club, a challenge to fisticuffs with Nat'l Review Editor Rich Lowry & an oddly sweet admissions visit to ultra-conservative Bob Jones University (a young research assistant posing as his son when his real son refuses to participate). Less useful are comic book dramatizations of "Supply Side Jesus" & a fictitious Vietnam War story featuring numerous righties who improperly avoided service. His criticisms of conservative talk show hosts Sean Hannity, O'Reilly & columnist Coulter, while admirable in their attention to detail, fail to shed much new light on people who have built careers on broad arguments & relentless self-aggrandizement. But he's at his best, & most compellingly readable, when he backs off the wackiness & the personal grudges & writes about more personal matters such as the political circus surrounding the memorial service of the late Senator Paul Wellstone. But even on these more serious topics, his wit is still present &, in fact, grows sharper. In a time when much political discourse is composed of rage & shouting, it's refreshing that he's able to shout in a witty manner.--John Moe (edited)