Synopses & Reviews
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 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.
Review
"[A] heady mixture of scathing humor and righteous indignation." The Onion
Review
"This book is laugh-out-loud funny." The Washington Post
Review
"A laugh-out-loud funny book...[Franken] fights fire with facts...his points are swiftly and deftly made, and his sense of humor about the current carnival of political grotesques is badly needed." Minneapolis Star Tribune
Review
"In the kicking, spitting spirit of current all-star political discourse, Al Franken gives as good as he gets....Funnier here than he was in his previous Oh, The Things I Know!, Mr. Franken also has a serious agenda." Janet Maslin, The New York Times
Review
"Knowledgeable and funny....[A] tough-minded look at politicians and the press." San Francisco Examiner
Review
"[T]he book is funny....What Franken has over his combatants...is that as a satirist, he's free to roam from fact to fiction....[Franken] stands tall and takes aim. In today's theater of acrimonious politics, he has major box-office appeal." Sherryl Connelly, New York Daily News
Review
"[A] typically unabashed blend of razor-witted denunciation and old-fashioned gumshoe detective work directed at right-wing crazies both in and out of government....And Franken can be very funny." Andrew Gumbel, The Independent (U.K.)
Review
"Liberals should love it....[Franken's] jokes and facts are more likely to entertain readers who share his politics than they are to change minds....He enjoys goading his targets, if only for new material." Bob Minzesheimer, USA Today
Review
"What is striking about Franken's book is that along with the sharp political zings and sometimes sophomoric jokes...there is some genuinely impressive investigative reporting." Margo Hammond, St. Petersburg Times
Review
"Funny, angry, and intelligent." New York Times Book Review
Review
"Wickedly funny." Newsweek
Review
"Al Franken is really funny....But although of course his bantam arguments are hilarious and thrilling and will probably be the most quoted scenes in the book reviews, why, there's ever so much more!" Rebecca Schoenkopf, Orange County Weekly
Review
"It doesn't take much to expose the right-wing hypocrites...as lying frauds, but in [this] delightfully vicious new book...it all seems much too easy....Al Franken is one of the first to say so with wit, charm, and a healthy dose of cynical bite." Matt Cale, RuthlessReviews.com
Synopsis
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 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.
Synopsis
The #1 New York Times bestseller by Senator Al Franken, author of Giant of the Senate
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 GOP'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.
Synopsis
For the first time since his own classic Rush Limbaugh Is a Big Fat Idiot and Other Observations, Al Franken trains his subversive wit directly on the contemporary political scene. Now, the "master of political humor" (Washington Times) destroys the myth of liberal bias in the media, and exposes how the Right shamelessly tries to deceive the rest of us. No one is spared as Al uses the Right's own words against them. Not the Bush administration and their rhetorical hypocrisy. Not Ann Coulter and her specious screeds. Not the new generation of talk-radio hosts, and not Bill O'Reilly, Roger Ailes, and the entire Fox network. This is the book Al Franken fans have been waiting for (and his foes have been dreading). Timely, provocative, unfailingly honest, and always funny, Lies is sure to become the most talked about book of political humor in 2004 and beyond.
Synopsis
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.
About the Author
Al Franken is the #1 bestselling author of Rush Limbaugh Is a Big Fat Idiot and Other Observations; Why Not Me?; Oh, the Things I Know!; and I'm Good Enough, I'm Smart Enough, and Doggone It, People Like Me! In 2003, he served as a Fellow with Harvard's Kennedy School of Government at the Shorenstein Center on the Press, Politics, and Public Policy.
Table of Contents
A Note from the Author xi Introduction xv
1 Hummus 1
2 Ann Coulter: Nutcase 5
3 You Know Who I Don't Like? Ann Coulter 17
4 Liberals Who Hate America 21
5 Loving America the Al Franken Way 24
6 I Bitch-Slap Bernie Goldberg 28
7 The 2000 Presidential Election: How It Disproved the Hypothetical Liberal Media Paradigm Matrix 37
8 Conclusion: A Lesson Learned 51
9 Five Get-Rich-Quick Tips the Wall Street Fat Cats Don't Want You to Know 52
10 Chapter for American Book by Kharap Juta 56
11 I'm Funnier than Kharap Juta 57
12 The Chapter on Fox 58
13 Bill O'Reilly: Lying, Splotchy Bully 65
14 Hannity and Comes 83
15 The Blame-America's Ex-President-First Crowd 104
16 Operation Ignore 115
17 Our National Dialogue on Terrorism 123
18 Humor in Uniform 124
19 Who Created the Tone? 132
20 Did the tone Change? 142
21 Why Did Anyone Think It Would Change? 143
22 I Grow Discouraged About the Tone 152
23 I'm Prudenized 165
24 Paul Gigot Is Unable to Defend an Incredibly Stupid Wall Street Journal Editorial 170
25 "This Was Not a Memorial to Paul Wellstone": A Case Study in Right-Wing Lies 177
26 I Attend the White House Correspondents Dinner and Annoy Karl Rove, Richard Perle, Paul Wolfowitz, and the Entire Fox News Team 206
27 The Lying Years 217
28 Bush Can't Lose With Clinton's Military 220
29 Operation Chickenhawk: Episode One 226
30 Fun with Racism 252
31 I'm a Bad Liar 261
32 Thank God for Jerry Falwell 277
33 Abstinence Heroes 283
34 Abstinence Heroes II 287
35 "By Far the Vast Majority of My Tax Cuts Go to Those at the Bottom" 288
36 The Waitress and the Lawyer: A One-Act Play 304
37 The Gospel of Supply Side Jesus 313
38 I Challenge Rich Lowry to a Fight 324
39 Vast Lagoons of Pig Feces: The Bush Environmental Record 328
40 I Meet Former First Lady Barbara Bush and It Doesn't Go Well! 336
41 My Personal Search for Weapons of Mass Destruction 342
42 The No Child Left Behind Standardized Test 349
43 What is a Lie? 352 Sources and Notes 355 Meet TeamFranken 369 Acknowledgments 373 Endnotes 379