Lies: And the Lying Liars Who Tell Them: A Fair and Balanced Look at the Right
Listen to Al Franken as interviewed by Dan Susskind of Another Perspective on VoiceAmerica.com!\ Get the free Real Player\ Al Franken, one of our “savviest satirists” (People), has been studying the rhetoric of the Right. He has listened to their cries of “slander,” “bias,” and even “treason.” He has examined the Bush administration’s policies of squandering our surplus, ravaging the environment, and alienating the rest of the world. He’s even watched Fox News. A...
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Al Franken, one of our “savviest satirists” (People), has been studying the rhetoric of the Right. He has listened to their cries of “slander,” “bias,” and even “treason.” He has examined the Bush administration's policies of squandering our surplus, ravaging the environment, and alienating the rest of the world. He's even watched Fox News. A lot. And, in this fair and balanced report, Al bravely and candidly exposes them all for what they are: liars. Lying, lying liars. Al destroys the liberal media bias myth by doing what his targets seem incapable of: getting his facts straight. Using the Right's own words against them, he takes on the pundits, the politicians, and the issues, in the most talked about book of the year. Timely, provocative, unfailingly honest, and always funny, Lies sticks it to the most right-wing administration in memory, and to the right-wing media hacks who do its bidding. The New York Times Note to Bill O'Reilly, the de facto publicist for Lies thanks to Fox News's hapless efforts to block its publication: Never say "Never said it" or "You can't find a transcript where I said it" when a man with 14 researchers is on your trail. In a book that baits its targets with varying degrees of success, Mr. Franken makes a bull's-eye out of Mr. O'Reilly. First the prize: he shows how Mr. O'Reilly's erroneous claim that he won a Peabody Award evolved into even bigger fibs once it was challenged. — Janet Maslin
An excerpt from\ LIES: And the Lying Liars Who Them—A Fair and Balanced Look at the Right\ by Al Franken\ Introduction\ God chose me to write this book.\ Just the fact that you are reading this is proof not just of God’s existence, but also of His/Her/Its beneficence. That’s right. I am not certain of God’s precise gender. But I am certain that He/She/It chose me to write this book.\ This isn’t hubris. I’m not saying this in an egotistical way. God didn’t choose me because I’m the greatest writer who ever lived. That was William Shakespeare, whose work I have a passing familiarity with. No. I just happened to be the right vessel at the right time. If something in this book makes you laugh, it was God’s joke. If something makes you think, it’s because God had a good point to make.\ The reason I know God chose me is because God spoke to me personally.\ God began our conversation by clearing something up. Some of George W. Bush’s friends say that Bush believes God called him to be president during these times of trial. But God told me that He/She/It had actually chosen Al Gore by making sure that Gore won the popular vote and, God thought, the electoral college. “THAT WORKED FOR EVERYONE ELSE,” God said.\ “What about Tilden?” I asked, referring to the 1876 debacle.\ “QUIET!” God snapped. God was angry.\ God said that after 9/11, George W. Bush squandered a unique moment of national unity. That instead of rallying the country around a program of mutual purpose and sacrifice, Bush cynically used the tragedy to solidify his political power and pursue an agenda that panders to his base and serves the interests of his corporate backers.\ God told me that Bush squandered a $4.6 trillion surplus and is plunging us into deficits as far as God can see. And that Bush squandered another surplus. The surplus of goodwill from the rest of the world that he had inherited from Bill Clinton.\ And this was pissing God off.\ He/She/It was right. But it sounded like a lot of work.\ “Look, God, I’m flattered, but I think you got the wrong guy. The kind of book you’re talking about would require months of research.”\ And God said, “LET THERE BE GOOGLE. AND LET THERE BE LEXISNEXIS.”\ “Very funny, God. I use Google all the time.”\ “YES, I KNOW,” God said. “FOR HOT ASIAN TEENS.”\ “You must be thinking of my son, Joe.”\ “AL? I'M OMNISCIENT.”\ “Okay, okay.” I changed the subject. “It’s just that I can’t do this book myself.”\ “LEAVE THAT TO ME,” God boomed.\ And that’s when Harvard called.\ ***\ Harvard’s Kennedy School of Government asked me to serve as a fellow at its Shorenstein Center on the Press, Politics, and Public Policy. After my varied and celebrated career in television, movies, publishing, and the lucrative world of corporate speaking, being a fellow at Harvard seemed, frankly, like a step down.\ I couldn’t think of anything less appealing than molding the minds of tomorrow’s leaders, unless it was spending fireside evenings sipping sherry with great minds at the Faculty Club. Yawn.\ To my surprise and delight, though, all Harvard wanted me to do was show up every once in a while and write something about something. That gave me an idea.\ “Would it be okay if I wrote a scathingly partisan attack on the rightwing media and the Bush administration?”\ “No problem,” Harvard said absentmindedly.\ “Count me in,” I replied. “From now on call me ‘Professor Franken.’”\ “No,” Harvard said, “you’re not a professor. But you can run a study group on the topic of your choosing.”\ “Great,” I said. “I’ve got the perfect topic: Write My Son’s Harvard College Application Essay.”\ “No,” they said. “Harvard students already know how to write successful Harvard applications, Al. We want you to teach them something new.”\ Harvard was right where I wanted it. “How about if the topic is: How to Research My Book?”\ “Sure,” Harvard said. “Most of our professors teach that course. Why, in the Biochemistry department, most of the graduate level courses are-”\ Harvard was boring me. “I gotta run, Harvard. Thanks.”\ ***\ I had my Nexis, I had my Google, I had my Harvard fellowship, and I had my fourteen research assistants. I sat down to write. Nothing.\ So I got on my knees and prayed for guidance. “How, God, can I best do Your work through this book? Who, dear Lord, is the audience for a book like this? And what’s a good title?”\ God answered, “YOU KNOW THOSE SHITTY BOOKS BY ANN COULTER AND BERNIE GOLDBERG?”\ “The best-sellers that claim there’s a liberal bias in the media?” I asked.\ “TOTAL BULLSHIT,” God said. “START BY ATTACKING THEM. HE'S CLEARLY A DISGRUNTLED FORMER EMPLOYEE, AND SHE JUST LIES. BY THE WAY, THERE'S SOMETHING SERIOUSLY WRONG WITH HER.”\ “That’s pretty obvious.”\ “SO GO AFTER THEM, THE WHOLE LIBERAL BIAS MYTH, AND THEN GO AFTER THE RIGHT-WING MEDIA. ESPECIALLY FOX.”\ “Okay, God, I’m writing this down.”\ “THEN USE THEM AS A JUMPING-OFF POINT TO GO AFTER BUSH. YOU KNOW, BIG TAX CUTS FOR THE RICH, SURGING UNEMPLOYMENT, IGNORING EVERYONE BUT HIS CORPORATE BUDDIES, SCREWING THE ENVIRONMENT, PISSING OFF THE REST OF THE WORLD. THAT STUFF. AND THAT'S YOUR BOOK.”\ “Got it. One last thing. Title.”\ “HOW ABOUT BEARERS OF FALSE WITNESS AND THE FALSE WITNESS THAT THEY BEAR?”\ “Hmm. I, uh, I’ll work with that.”
A Note from the AuthorIntroduction1Hummus12Ann Coulter: Nutcase53You Know Who I Don't Like? Ann Coulter174Liberals Who Hate America215Loving America the Al Franken Way246I Bitch-Slap Bernie Goldberg287The 2000 Presidential Election: How It Disproved the Hypothetical Liberal Media Paradigm Matrix378Conclusion: A Lesson Learned519Five Get-Rich-Quick Tips the Wall Street Fat Cats Don't Want You to Know5210Chapter for American Book by Kharap Juta5611I'm Funnier than Kharap Juta5712The Chapter on Fox5813Bill O'Reilly: Lying, Splotchy Bully6514Hannity and Colmes8315The Blame-America's-Ex-President-First Crowd10416Operation Ignore11517Our National Dialogue on Terrorism12318Humor in Uniform12419Who Created the Tone?13220Did the Tone Change?14221Why Did Anyone Think It Would Change?14322I Grow Discouraged About the Tone15223I'm Prudenized16524Paul Gigot Is Unable to Defend an Incredibly Stupid Wall Street Journal Editorial17025"This Was Not a Memorial to Paul Wellstone": A Case Study in Right-Wing Lies17726I Attend the White House Correspondents Dinner and Annoy Karl Rove, Richard Perle, Paul Wolfowitz, and the Entire Fox News Team20627The Lying Years21728Bush Can't Lose With Clinton's Military22029Operation Chickenhawk: Episode One22630Fun with Racism25231I'm a Bad Liar26132Thank God for Jerry Falwell27733Abstinence Heroes28334Abstinence Heroes II28735"By Far the Vast Majority of My Tax Cuts Go to Those at the Bottom"28836The Waitress and the Lawyer: A One-Act Play30437The Gospel of Supply Side Jesus31338I Challenge Rich Lowry to a Fight32439Vast Lagoons of Pig Feces: The Bush Environmental Record32840I Meet Former First Lady Barbara Bush and It Doesn't Go Well33641My Personal Search for Weapons of Mass Destruction34242The No Child Left Behind Standardized Test34943What Is a Lie?352Sources and Notes355Meet TeamFranken369Acknowledgments373Endnotes379
\ The New York TimesNote to Bill O'Reilly, the de facto publicist for Lies thanks to Fox News's hapless efforts to block its publication: Never say "Never said it" or "You can't find a transcript where I said it" when a man with 14 researchers is on your trail. In a book that baits its targets with varying degrees of success, Mr. Franken makes a bull's-eye out of Mr. O'Reilly. First the prize: he shows how Mr. O'Reilly's erroneous claim that he won a Peabody Award evolved into even bigger fibs once it was challenged. — Janet Maslin\ \ \ \ \ The Washington PostThis guy Al Franken is nasty. He's mean. He's vicious. He is, in short, the perfect guy to write a book attacking America's nasty, mean, vicious right-wing pols, pundits and preachers. But Franken has something that his targets conspicuously lack -- a sense of humor. This book is laugh-out-loud funny. — Peter Carlson\ \ \ Library JournalFranken returns to the political arena with his best book yet. Along with the 14 Harvard students who make up "Team Franken," he employs a somewhat unique approach in writing this work: fact-checking and research to back up his satirical look at the right. The first major target he tackles is the myth that the media are liberal; a brief look at the 2000 presidential election debacle should be enough to convince most rational people to the contrary. Fortunately, Franken has many more examples. His appearances on C-SPAN have shown what happens when conservative talk-show host Bill O'Reilly tries to use his vocal bullying tactics on a professional satirist. The author covers this event and other media misrepresentations with wit and humor. The chapters on Bush's tax cuts, environmental record, and the ongoing war will help convince the listener that it wasn't just Al Gore who was bushwhacked in Florida. Sure to be a hit with Franken's many fans, this program is highly recommended for all libraries. For those not blinded by the right, this will serve as a wake-up call to look further than the local paper or TV news coverage for topics that matter.-Theresa Connors, Arkansas Tech Univ., Russellville Copyright 2004 Reed Business Information.\ \
