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3.77 AVERAGE
3.77 AVERAGE
This gave me weird dreams about being high on cocaine & bullfighting a hummer with the American flag.
Read this in the early mid-aughts during the approximate time frame of Franken's hilarious AND informative Air America Radio run.
in total fairness, it's not like he could have predicted that this book would seem quaint by 2017.
I'm sure this book would have been Informative and witty had I read it when it was timely, as it was j couldn't finish it because so much stuff went over my head. I only picked this book up because Rory Gilmore read it
I first read this in 2004, but I recently re-read it because I couldn't remember it and Franken has a new book that I'll have to wait to get from the library. This book is actually really well-argued and researched, probably because Franken had an entire team of Harvard graduate students to fact-check and edit his chapters. But the most remarkable thing is how inaccurate the purposefully conservative media already was by 2003- and how they have always (ironically) accused the mainstream media of having a bias. Fox News had already been in operation for about 6 years- since October 1996. You know what distinguishes real news from "fake news?" Fact checking, fact checking, fact checking!
Twenty years later we are living through the disastrous results of the right wing's attack on truth, which turned out to be an attack on American democracy.
Twenty years later we are living through the disastrous results of the right wing's attack on truth, which turned out to be an attack on American democracy.
Interesting to flash back to almost 20 years ago before Trump, heck, before Obama.
This very funny but extremely serious book goes after the deliberate falsehoods perpetrated by the right-wing on "liberals."
As you may know, the Fox Network went after Franken for trademark infringement because he used the phrase "fair and balanced." The judge threw out the suit as completely ludicrous and made several trenchant comments about the inability of the Fox executives to recognize satire when they saw it
.
Harvard University gave Franken a fellowship to basically do whatever he wanted, but demurred at his idea of having Harvard students write his son's college application. Franken finally hit upon the idea of having a group of students do research for his book. They bought the idea.
His first target is Ann Coulter, author of Scandal. Franken methodically picks apart her book, revealing it for the inaccurate, if not disingenuous, piece of nonsense it is. He also shows how she has blatantly lied about things. Her Connecticut driver's license shows her birth date as 1961; her Washington DL says 1963. She claims the Washington DL is correct, which means she voted as a sixteen-year-old. On one of the applications she lied about her age. Now, many people have done that, but since the US Patriot Act makes it a felony to put false information on a government ID, she could be whisked away and held without counsel for a long time. I wish they would. Simple charges she makes in her book were never checked. For example, she complains that Evan Thomas, supposedly one of those heinous liberals, was the son of Norman Thomas, four-time [sic:] candidate for president on the Socialist party ticket. Actually, he ran six times, and a simple phone call to Evan Thomas reveals that he is not the son of Norman Thomas. Coulter's book is filled with such false details. Either she is extremely lazy or a blatant liar. Franken obviously suspects the latter.
Francken has infuriated that scion of right-wing Fox Bill O'Reilly by publicly pointing out many untruths that O'Reilly has put forth. At Book Expo in Los Angeles, O'Reilly was humiliated by Franken, who categorically listed all sorts of lies O'Reilly had perpetrated on the public. Now, Franken makes clear that occasionally making a mistake on a statistic is hardly a crime, but O'Reilly's customary tactic, when challenged with the correct information from unimpeachable sources is to simply bully and yell at his challenger rather than correct the mistake. The problem is also that he makes lots of mistakes. More from the "sewer of right-wing dishonesty. When he interviewed the son of a worker killed on 9/11 on February 4th, 2003, he became enraged at the son's opposition to the war in Iraq, had his engineer cut off the man's microphone, and sent him packing saying to him after the show's end, "Get out of my studio before I tear you to f*cking pieces."
O'Reilly, who constantly rails at the lyrics of rap songs, wrote a murder mystery in 1998, Those who Trespass (about a serial killer who murders everyone who interferes with his rising television career), that took explicit sex and violence to new heights and the English language to new lows. In one murder, the victim is killed by having a spoon driven through the roof of her mouth into her brain stem. Variants of the "F" word and "B" word are used more than 51 times. Case of the pot calling the kettle black? O'Reilly is not a nice man.
Team Franken took a look at Hannity's (of Hannity and Colmes,) book to verify the factualness of his statements. Examples of disingenuousness and dishonesty abound.
Bush's initial indifference to al Qaeda prior to 9/11 is astonishing. The Clinton administration had developed plans for eliminating Bin Laden, but those plans were ignored. That the Bin Laden family were good friends with the Bush family is well-known, and Franken speculates as to what might have happened to Clinton had he been so nice to the Bin Laden family, permitting a Saudi plane to fly around the country picking up family members for return to Saudi Arabia, while American airplanes were grounded. In the meantime, President Bush has broken all presidential records for the number of days spent on vacation.
The book is often uneven, some parts funnier and some more serious. Should one laugh or cry learning that many of our leaders today, Cheney, Wolfowitz, Perle, Bush, and other chickenhawks who are sending men off to die in war, did everything in their power, having their fathers pull strings and inventing flimsy excuses (shouldn't pick on Limbaugh, I think he was just too fat) to avoid service in Vietnam.
As you may know, the Fox Network went after Franken for trademark infringement because he used the phrase "fair and balanced." The judge threw out the suit as completely ludicrous and made several trenchant comments about the inability of the Fox executives to recognize satire when they saw it
.
Harvard University gave Franken a fellowship to basically do whatever he wanted, but demurred at his idea of having Harvard students write his son's college application. Franken finally hit upon the idea of having a group of students do research for his book. They bought the idea.
His first target is Ann Coulter, author of Scandal. Franken methodically picks apart her book, revealing it for the inaccurate, if not disingenuous, piece of nonsense it is. He also shows how she has blatantly lied about things. Her Connecticut driver's license shows her birth date as 1961; her Washington DL says 1963. She claims the Washington DL is correct, which means she voted as a sixteen-year-old. On one of the applications she lied about her age. Now, many people have done that, but since the US Patriot Act makes it a felony to put false information on a government ID, she could be whisked away and held without counsel for a long time. I wish they would. Simple charges she makes in her book were never checked. For example, she complains that Evan Thomas, supposedly one of those heinous liberals, was the son of Norman Thomas, four-time [sic:] candidate for president on the Socialist party ticket. Actually, he ran six times, and a simple phone call to Evan Thomas reveals that he is not the son of Norman Thomas. Coulter's book is filled with such false details. Either she is extremely lazy or a blatant liar. Franken obviously suspects the latter.
Francken has infuriated that scion of right-wing Fox Bill O'Reilly by publicly pointing out many untruths that O'Reilly has put forth. At Book Expo in Los Angeles, O'Reilly was humiliated by Franken, who categorically listed all sorts of lies O'Reilly had perpetrated on the public. Now, Franken makes clear that occasionally making a mistake on a statistic is hardly a crime, but O'Reilly's customary tactic, when challenged with the correct information from unimpeachable sources is to simply bully and yell at his challenger rather than correct the mistake. The problem is also that he makes lots of mistakes. More from the "sewer of right-wing dishonesty. When he interviewed the son of a worker killed on 9/11 on February 4th, 2003, he became enraged at the son's opposition to the war in Iraq, had his engineer cut off the man's microphone, and sent him packing saying to him after the show's end, "Get out of my studio before I tear you to f*cking pieces."
O'Reilly, who constantly rails at the lyrics of rap songs, wrote a murder mystery in 1998, Those who Trespass (about a serial killer who murders everyone who interferes with his rising television career), that took explicit sex and violence to new heights and the English language to new lows. In one murder, the victim is killed by having a spoon driven through the roof of her mouth into her brain stem. Variants of the "F" word and "B" word are used more than 51 times. Case of the pot calling the kettle black? O'Reilly is not a nice man.
Team Franken took a look at Hannity's (of Hannity and Colmes,) book to verify the factualness of his statements. Examples of disingenuousness and dishonesty abound.
Bush's initial indifference to al Qaeda prior to 9/11 is astonishing. The Clinton administration had developed plans for eliminating Bin Laden, but those plans were ignored. That the Bin Laden family were good friends with the Bush family is well-known, and Franken speculates as to what might have happened to Clinton had he been so nice to the Bin Laden family, permitting a Saudi plane to fly around the country picking up family members for return to Saudi Arabia, while American airplanes were grounded. In the meantime, President Bush has broken all presidential records for the number of days spent on vacation.
The book is often uneven, some parts funnier and some more serious. Should one laugh or cry learning that many of our leaders today, Cheney, Wolfowitz, Perle, Bush, and other chickenhawks who are sending men off to die in war, did everything in their power, having their fathers pull strings and inventing flimsy excuses (shouldn't pick on Limbaugh, I think he was just too fat) to avoid service in Vietnam.
I read this book right after finishing Michael Moore's Stupid White Men, full of righteous indignation and certainty of our country's decline into hell. One day while reading Stupid White Men on the bus into school, I was recommended by a random stranger to definitely read Franken's book if I was enjoying Moore's. And I'm so glad I took the advice.
Although the subject matter is similar in content and views in the two books, I just BELIEVED Franken and enjoyed his book so much more. He tends to go off on fewer rambling, beligerent tangents than Moore, which had grown tedious and often seemed to negate what could have potentially been an excellent lesson in the sketchy politics and scheming of certain individuals in various positions of power due to his over-zealous tirade that bordered on mania. Franken, on the other hand, tended to present what I perceived as more factual material laced with his certain brand satirical, stinging wit. And while Moore was positively and brutally unyielding in his berating and scorn, Franken admitted exceptions to his generalizations and virtues in his agonists, giving him a more human approach to his subjects as opposed to the fanatical zealot that Moore seems to often portray. Franken's book is by no means spin-free, however, where appropriate, he added multiple references lending his views the impression of being based in reality and the points of his tirades substantial opportunity for follow-up, if I were so inclined (and I have to admit that I was not). Of course, it may not be a fair comparison since Franken did have a small army of eager, ivy-league fact-checkers and researchers on his side.
But on the whole, I much preferred Franken's means of delivering the message to that of Moore's, which I believe lends itself to easy dismissal by his rabid and sometimes frenzied presentation. I believe it would be possible to have a fair and lively debate with Franken, while with Moore, I'm afraid I would be too preoccupied with searching out protective gear and wiping his spit from my face to have any intelligent and balanced exchange.
Although the subject matter is similar in content and views in the two books, I just BELIEVED Franken and enjoyed his book so much more. He tends to go off on fewer rambling, beligerent tangents than Moore, which had grown tedious and often seemed to negate what could have potentially been an excellent lesson in the sketchy politics and scheming of certain individuals in various positions of power due to his over-zealous tirade that bordered on mania. Franken, on the other hand, tended to present what I perceived as more factual material laced with his certain brand satirical, stinging wit. And while Moore was positively and brutally unyielding in his berating and scorn, Franken admitted exceptions to his generalizations and virtues in his agonists, giving him a more human approach to his subjects as opposed to the fanatical zealot that Moore seems to often portray. Franken's book is by no means spin-free, however, where appropriate, he added multiple references lending his views the impression of being based in reality and the points of his tirades substantial opportunity for follow-up, if I were so inclined (and I have to admit that I was not). Of course, it may not be a fair comparison since Franken did have a small army of eager, ivy-league fact-checkers and researchers on his side.
But on the whole, I much preferred Franken's means of delivering the message to that of Moore's, which I believe lends itself to easy dismissal by his rabid and sometimes frenzied presentation. I believe it would be possible to have a fair and lively debate with Franken, while with Moore, I'm afraid I would be too preoccupied with searching out protective gear and wiping his spit from my face to have any intelligent and balanced exchange.
This book is hilarious, but it can also be overwhelming. The lies of the right are clearly exposed, and that sometimes wore me down. I had to put the book down the first time I started reading it (a few years ago), because I was so disgusted with what the right had done. This time I had to put it down for a few weeks to get past the disgust before I could finish it. The humorous writing carried me through.
Besides, it was refreshing to have the lies exposed with facts, for once.
Besides, it was refreshing to have the lies exposed with facts, for once.
One of the first books to get me involved in critically observing political punditry. We can't trust what people in the media or politicians tell us - this book is a case study in why. I haven't read it since it was originally released in 2003.. I bet it seems downright quaint now.