Wednesday, May 26, 2004
JUST FINISHED: Lies and the Lying Liars Who Tell Them by Al Franken. As if you didn't think I'd get around to this eventually...
I'm going to spend just a brief amount of time on the book itself since, unlike the moldy back catalog tomes I've been reading for the past few years, I know for a fact that I'm the last one in the crowd to have read Lies. It's up to the same standard as Rush Limbaugh Is A Big Fat Idiot, hooking the reader with the acid digs at the right wing commentators and politicians, keeping them with the researched material (we'll get to the errata eventually).
A lot of the time, we get what I call "that's just Al" moments, the ones that can be traced back to the man who did a comedy sketch in the 1970s about having a brain tumor. The "Operation: Chickenhawk" and Supply Side Jesus stories come to mind, not to mention the misadventure at Bob Jones University. In those moments, Franken speaks strictly from the spleen, but sometimes, as in the chapter on the Paul Wellstone memorial, he does come from a more heartfelt place. Presumably, anybody who buys the book is paying for spleen, but it's good that he occasionally modulates the tone.
I've always said that those who think the current round of cranks is the most dishonest ever don't have a sense of history. The GOP senator in the 1930s who "debated" a selection of out-of-context recordings of FDR speeches comes to mind, not to mention the Czar's guy who wrote that "Elders of Zion" thing. O'Reilly, Coulter, and Hannity are lightweights in the rich history of reality twisters, which is small consolation for those who have to deal with them. A book like Lies might be considered the "comfort food" of political discourse, something to read to make yourself feel better after trying to decipher the latest speech from Bush the Younger, but it was still entertaining, thought provoking at times, and hopefully will encourage further reading.
And now, a few points on some things that have sprouted around the book...apart from the Fox News lawsuit, anyway. One of the most fascinating articles I've read lately was a right-wing commentator getting about forty pages into Al Franken's latest book when he hit a single "bent" statistic about the press coverage in the 2000 election that caused him to snap the book shut and never return to it. He then proceeds to write an essay slamming Franken on the first 40 pages of a book our fearless commentator never bothered to finish, which tells more about the article author than the book author. It's really a shame, since at that point, Al was just getting warmed up.
I would be remiss if I didn't point out a page, very cheerfully labeled FrankenLies.com, which points out a few slips in a "humorous" tone. To be fair, at least one point brought up (the "vandalism" of the White House by outgoing Clinton staffers) is one on which Al spends quite a bit of space, but while helpfully linking to the official report, they very studiously skip what I consider a key point: the 1993 transition from Bush (the elder) to Clinton involved "missing office signs and doorknobs, messages written inside desks, prank signs and messages, piles of furniture and equipment, and excessive trash left in offices." Of course, that's exactly what the report is investigating regarding the outgoing Clinton staffers. The report also mentions a 1981 article regarding some things the incoming Reagan staff found.
Neither Franken nor FrankenLies.com bother to mention any of this; I can understand why the Franken-buster didn't bring this up, since by the page's definition, the webmaster is only obliged to stick to the text, but Al, come on! It was right there! It's very easy for me, an amateur, to draw a conclusion that this type of low-minded horseplay goes on all the time, but because it was Clinton's people, the media made a "special case" out of it. You made the right attack for the wrong reason!
I can't help but notice another error Franken's roasted for is clearly a joke that somebody didn't get. A lot of that's going around in the country these days.
Oh yeah, check this site out, if you dare. The guy stopped updating it when he started WastedIrony.com, but it should give you a general idea of where the blonde demon is coming from. Where Coulter's Streisand fixation comes from, I have no idea.
AND WHILE I'M IN A SNOTTY MOOD: This would make a good tie-in with the Passion movie. And I'm evil now.
I'm going to spend just a brief amount of time on the book itself since, unlike the moldy back catalog tomes I've been reading for the past few years, I know for a fact that I'm the last one in the crowd to have read Lies. It's up to the same standard as Rush Limbaugh Is A Big Fat Idiot, hooking the reader with the acid digs at the right wing commentators and politicians, keeping them with the researched material (we'll get to the errata eventually).
A lot of the time, we get what I call "that's just Al" moments, the ones that can be traced back to the man who did a comedy sketch in the 1970s about having a brain tumor. The "Operation: Chickenhawk" and Supply Side Jesus stories come to mind, not to mention the misadventure at Bob Jones University. In those moments, Franken speaks strictly from the spleen, but sometimes, as in the chapter on the Paul Wellstone memorial, he does come from a more heartfelt place. Presumably, anybody who buys the book is paying for spleen, but it's good that he occasionally modulates the tone.
I've always said that those who think the current round of cranks is the most dishonest ever don't have a sense of history. The GOP senator in the 1930s who "debated" a selection of out-of-context recordings of FDR speeches comes to mind, not to mention the Czar's guy who wrote that "Elders of Zion" thing. O'Reilly, Coulter, and Hannity are lightweights in the rich history of reality twisters, which is small consolation for those who have to deal with them. A book like Lies might be considered the "comfort food" of political discourse, something to read to make yourself feel better after trying to decipher the latest speech from Bush the Younger, but it was still entertaining, thought provoking at times, and hopefully will encourage further reading.
And now, a few points on some things that have sprouted around the book...apart from the Fox News lawsuit, anyway. One of the most fascinating articles I've read lately was a right-wing commentator getting about forty pages into Al Franken's latest book when he hit a single "bent" statistic about the press coverage in the 2000 election that caused him to snap the book shut and never return to it. He then proceeds to write an essay slamming Franken on the first 40 pages of a book our fearless commentator never bothered to finish, which tells more about the article author than the book author. It's really a shame, since at that point, Al was just getting warmed up.
I would be remiss if I didn't point out a page, very cheerfully labeled FrankenLies.com, which points out a few slips in a "humorous" tone. To be fair, at least one point brought up (the "vandalism" of the White House by outgoing Clinton staffers) is one on which Al spends quite a bit of space, but while helpfully linking to the official report, they very studiously skip what I consider a key point: the 1993 transition from Bush (the elder) to Clinton involved "missing office signs and doorknobs, messages written inside desks, prank signs and messages, piles of furniture and equipment, and excessive trash left in offices." Of course, that's exactly what the report is investigating regarding the outgoing Clinton staffers. The report also mentions a 1981 article regarding some things the incoming Reagan staff found.
Neither Franken nor FrankenLies.com bother to mention any of this; I can understand why the Franken-buster didn't bring this up, since by the page's definition, the webmaster is only obliged to stick to the text, but Al, come on! It was right there! It's very easy for me, an amateur, to draw a conclusion that this type of low-minded horseplay goes on all the time, but because it was Clinton's people, the media made a "special case" out of it. You made the right attack for the wrong reason!
I can't help but notice another error Franken's roasted for is clearly a joke that somebody didn't get. A lot of that's going around in the country these days.
Oh yeah, check this site out, if you dare. The guy stopped updating it when he started WastedIrony.com, but it should give you a general idea of where the blonde demon is coming from. Where Coulter's Streisand fixation comes from, I have no idea.
AND WHILE I'M IN A SNOTTY MOOD: This would make a good tie-in with the Passion movie. And I'm evil now.
|| Eric 9:14 AM#
