Lies and the Lying Liars Who Tell Them by Al Franken           

As someone that tries to remain fairly moderate in politics, I read Al Franken’s Lies and the Lying Liars Who Tell Them for the comedic value. However, he makes several very important points about the slant of the media and discredits the notion of a liberal bias very convincingly.  The majority of his venom is directed at Fox News with Bill O’Reilly and Hannity and Colmes being his main targets.  However, he also points about the dishonesty of Ann Coulter’s work and does an excellent job of not only discrediting these people, but making them look downright idiotic.

My favorite sections of the book, by far, were the times that he pointed out the factual errors of these conservatives.  Rather than simply being a loudmouthed blowhard, Franken used facts and data to discredit some of the key points that the conservatives consistently use.  For example, Franken demonstrates that O’Reilly grew up in a wealthy section of Long Island rather than a lower-class neighborhood as O’Reilly claims.  Franken’s source is O’Reilly’s own mother.  In addition, he included O’Reilly’s voter registration card to demonstrate that he is a registered Republican rather than an independent as he claims.

Mixed in with Franken’s factual mudslinging, he still maintains his typical sharp wit.  He includes a short story about what would have happened if John Kerry was forced to lead many of the famous draft-dodging Republicans into the Vietnam War.  This story, involving such draft-dodgers as George W. Bush and Bill O’Reilly, is pretty funny and provides a welcome relief to many of the current rants about life.

In addition to discrediting many conservative members of the media, Franken debunks the notion of a left-wing bias in mainstream media by pointed out many events during the Clinton Presidency.  He has numerous examples of times when Clinton was held to harsher criticism than Bush.  However, he does not make any mention of context in this section which makes it more difficult to believe.  For example, there was never a moment of crisis under Clinton that matches 9/11 which means that Clinton did not really have a free pass for any time period.  While that should not be construed as a defense of Bush, it definitely needs to be taken into consideration.

Finally, his longest and most emotional section is devoted to the death of Senator Paul Wellstone and the media coverage of the memorial ceremony held in his honor.  As a Minnesotan, I was not a particularly big fan of Wellstone but this chapter really struck a chord.  His description of the media coverage was exactly how I remember it occurring (since I was out-of-state in Washington, DC at the time).  I was unaware of many things that occurred at the service until reading the chapter and am grateful for much of the information that was included.

In all, Lies and the Lying Liars Who Tell Them was a good, light read that was perfect for me while I sat in an airport all day.  He raises many valuable points but is too humorous to really be taken seriously.  However, that creates a vicious Catch-22 because without his humor, I probably would not be willing to sit through his politics.  The book was intriguing, but did not quite reach its full potential.  Franken is definitely well-informed and may be able to use his developing radio show to completely express his views.