Book Review: Lies And the Lying Liars Who Tell Them

This is Al Fraken's book originally published two years ago and released in paperback about a year ago. While I'm not that impressed with his Air America Radio show, this book was very good. It's got a mix of many quotes and facts, backed up by references, and good biting satire.

He's at his best when he goes after the right-wing media (conspiracy?) of Bill O'Reilly, Ann Coulter, Rush Limbaugh, and Hannity and Colmes. He also does a good job on the Bush administration and their economic, environment, and military policies. He's better when he stick to facts. He talks frequently about TeamFranken, a group of 14 Harvard students who did the research, and it shows. He describes a lot of lies. He rips aparts speeches, books, TV shows etc. and does a really good job of it. I won't repeat here, but let me say I agree, Ann Coulter is a nutcase, Bill O'Reilly is a bully and Rush Limbaugh is an ass and they are all serial liers. And throughout all of this he's pretty funny and quite sarcastic.

He's really at his best when describing Paul Wellstone and how the right took advantage of his death and funeral by claiming that the Democrats took advantage of his death and funeral. The whole situation is really disgusting.

I had little use for the 20 page fictional account of various political figures serving together in Vietnam. Franken and one of the researchers visit Bob Jones University pretending that the researcher was interested in attending. They played various games with the students and employees and in the end he says he felt a little bad about it. But in Lazlo Toth style he describes other stunts including sending letters to various right wingers asking them to describe their abstinence stories so today's children can have someone to look up to. Of course he lied about the purpose and if he had gotten any real responses I'm sure he would have published them as jokes. He also describes meeting Barbara Bush on a plane, saying some sly things to her and having her say "I'm through with you" and then he describes her as a bitch. And he doesn't say he feels bad about these other bits.

In the end he says that to beat these liers we can't fight like they do, we need to fight them with the truth. The problem is, by mixing the facts with stunts like the above and mixing in a lot of sarcasism which isn't always clear when it starts and ends, he gives people the opportunity to tune him out for being what he complains about. I'm sure there are some errors in his work, there always are. And I'm sure he's pulled a few things out of context to make something particularly compelling or funny. There are several critics who are picking these out and the result is back-and-forth nitpicking on inconsequential things like whether Bill O'Reilly grew up in Westbury or Levitown. He's added some rebuttals in the paperback edition. But as far as I've seen they haven't faulted him on his substantive claims. Maybe the other side would have gone after whatever they could find anyway, probably so, but I think Franken helps them a bit with his style. It was entertaining and informative, but I think you have to take them in that order.

I wish his radio show was this good, I've listened to it some more since reading this book and fact to humor ratio is too low.