By: Al Franken Publisher: Dutton Adult Average Rating: Binding: Hardcover Format: Bargain Price Label: Dutton Adult Number of Items: 1 Number of Pages: 352 Publication Date: October 25, 2005
Product Description: Al Franken’s landmark bestseller, Lies (And the Lying Liars Who Tell Them): A Fair and Balanced Look at the Right, was praised as a "bitterly funny assault" (The New York Times) that rang "with the moral clarity of an angel’s trumpet" (The Associated Press). Now, this master of political humor strikes again with a powerful and provocative message for all of us.
In these pages, Al reveals the alarming story of how: * Bush (barely) beat Kerry with his campaign of "fear, smear, and queers," and then claimed a nonexistent mandate. * "Casino Jack"Abramoff, the Republicans’ nearest and dearest friend, made millions of dollars off of the unspeakable misery of the poor and the powerless. And, also, Native Americans. * The administration successfully implemented its strategy to destroy America’s credibility and goodwill around the world.
Complete with new material for this paperback edition, The Truth (with jokes) is more than just entertaining, intelligent, and insightful. It is at once prescient in its analysis of right-wing mendacity and incompetence, and inspiring in its vision of a better tomorrow for all Americans (except Jack Abramoff).
Amazon.com Review: Nearly a year after the presidential election of 2004, Al Franken is still checking facts, exposing lies, and trying to clear the record as he sees it. Sneering at President Bush's declaration of a mandate after a two-and-a-half percent victory, he deconstructs Bush's 2004 platform of "fear, smear, and queers," and explains how the president has done some flip-flopping of his own. He offers comment on well-known stories, including the Terri Schiavo case, and some more obscure, such as reports of forced prostitution, indentured servitude, and squalid conditions at clothing factories in Saipan (which is part of the American Commonwealth of the Northern Mariana Islands). Franken focuses on Tom DeLay's connection to the territory and his efforts to prevent bills from being passed that would have required Saipan to follow U.S. labor laws. Iraq, too, is discussed, from its planning stages to the huge sum of money currently unaccounted for, including $8.8 billion missing from the Coalition Provisional Authority's coffers.
On the home front, Franken covers President Bush's attempt at Social Security reform, explaining how they came up with the projected shortfall figure of $11 trillion. For one thing, they adjusted life expectancy to 150 years, while leaving the retirement age at 67: "That's an eighty-three-year retirement. They're never gonna get to that without stem cell research." He also takes some wickedly funny swipes at Karl Rove, lobbyist Jack Abramoff, pundits and hosts such as Rush Limbaugh, Tim Russert, and Sean Hannity, and, of course, President Bush. The Truth succeeds in providing ammunition to liberals and others dissatisfied with the current power base in Washington, D.C.--only this time (with jokes). --Shawn Carkonen
An Exclusive Video for The Truth (with jokes) from Al Franken
We try to keep things civil in our customer review section, but Al Franken, who apparently trained at the Saturday Night Live school of conflict mediation, didn't get the message in his exclusive video for his book The Truth (with Jokes): see high bandwidth and low bandwidth versions.
Brilliant, poignant and heart felt Franken is a master. His painstaking research should be a mantra for aspiring politicians as well as the general population. Bush and his band of idiots at the very least should be imprisoned and more appropriately should be slowly executed for nearly destroying our nation as well as being complicit in the deaths of thousands of our sons and daughters as well as hundreds of thousands of Iraqis. Franken paints a clear picture of the moral bankruptcy of the Republican machine with indisputable evidence and the author's mastery of semantics. It helps to keep the fire burning in our bellies to remind us to never let what happened between 2000 and 2008 rear its putrid head again!
Michael Savage's alter ego on the Left --Extreme fringe contextually misleading divisiveness This book is all about selectively attacking conservative at the expense of the truth.
Rabid and hate filled ideologues like Savage, Coulter, Moore, and Franken are dividing this nation by praying on uninformed and generally decent American people, It is time we called out these haters for what they are:
Lying liars!
These ideologues divide America and support their "findings" in a ridiculously unscientific contextually flawed manner designed solely to promote their hardwired ideology at the expense of truth. Considering the title, ironic isn't it.
For example, Franken spends a opening chapter attacking the Bush administration for hyping the terrorist threat after 9/11 with continual alerts. Hypocritically, Franken then criticizes the Bush administration for not hyping the terrorist threat prior to 9/11.
So in Franken's bizarro world, if you are a conservative, you are damned if you do and damned if you don't.
In later chapters,he spends considerable ink condemning corruption in government --- and yeah you guessed it -- all of them conservatives.
Ideologues like divisive Franken are dangerous since they limit our gaze on corruption -- note that in the wake of this anti-prophetic rant the following progressive politicians have been exposed (I guarantee Franken won't be writing a sequel about these dishonest pols)
Jefferson, Edwards, Spitzer, Blagojevich, Reznick, Siegelman, to name a few.
Contradictions abound, for example, Franken rails against Bush's charge that future social security obligations must be met with "increased taxes and reduced benefits" yet....
On virtually the same page, Franken presents his solution to future solvency problems by, you guessed it --- increased taxes and withholding benefits to older retirees.
In an earlier chapter, Franken rails against conservative support for "sweat shops" in a Pacific Island protectorate, yet on virtually the same page condemns management for forcing a worker to choose between having a baby or quit?!
Now if the sweat shop was so heinous, why would Franken want to defend the right of someone to work there???
In addition, since the women presumably had an abortion in order to retain her job "in a sweat shop hell" by using Franken's bizarre "logic" since Congressman Delay supports business in this island enclave, he is a supporter of abortion too?!
I wonder what Franken would say about Nancy Pelosi's minimum wage plan that extended to everyone except a small island in the Pacific that was home to a fish processing plant run as a "sweat shop" that coincidently happened to be a big contributor to her campaign --- yeah you guessed it -- you won't hear a peep from this divisive partisan liar.
This is an example of the incredible liberties Franken takes with logic. In his bizarro world, you are guilty by association if your in the same room with someone years removed from a supposed indiscretion.
In summary, it is time AMericans rid the political landscape of Liars like Franken on both sides of the political spectrum and return political discourse to civility, objectivity, and science.
Painfully Funny, and (at times) Just Painful Al Franken's books are generally wonderful. They're funny, informative and insightful.
This one also happens to be devastating.
It's a chronicle of George W. Bush's 2004 re-election campaign, and some of the lower lights of the Republican party during the early part of that term, including players in the campaign in Iraq.
I consider myself a conservative (though I'm really more of a libertarian), but that doesn't mean that I excuse incompetence, dishonesty or corruption from fellow conservatives. Those things are bad regardless of what side of the aisle they come from, and Franken does a masterful job of showing just what jerks some on the right have been.
Recently I read (and enjoyed) my first Ann Coulter book. I think it's important for people to consider all kinds of views, perhaps especially those that they are disinclined to agree with; we ought to challenge ourselves, and our beliefs. Both Coulter and Franken present their sides well, and with biting humor, and there is no reason that a thoughtful person cannot enjoy both. That said, Franken is the better of the two -- he's smarter, funnier, better equipped with research, and (I am convinced) more honest. His writings have the unmistakeable ring of truth to them.
I was so impressed, in fact, with Franken's writing (and I've been impressed before, with his early works), that it inspired me to make my first-ever political contribution, to his Senate campaign in Minnesota.
If I must come up with something negative to say about this book, to "balance out" my review, it might be that the humor in this book can only carry a reader so far. At times, the events that Franken relates are so disgusting that they seriously made me feel sick. Although, maybe that is actually this book's greatest strength. This isn't just humor writing you can smile at, put down and then forget. Franken's book shows how broken our system is: very, very broken. And while I don't think there are any easy answers, it's clear that we Americans need a fundamental regime change. Democrats may prove no better than the Republicans they replace, but they cannot be any worse.
Maybe someday, assuming my small donation is enough to carry the day for Franken in Minnesota, some conservative pundit will be able to write a blistering expose on Franken's misdeeds in office. I hope not, but am fully sure that, whatever may come to light, it cannot be worse than the disgusting saga aired out by Franken in The Truth (with jokes). This is a wonderful book, because it makes us laugh, makes us ill with disgust, and calls us to necessary action.
That is the truth, no joke.
Did this book make money? One of the people at my work brought two unread copies of this into work yesterday. Some of the jokes were funny, but the distortions were never ending. I really wonder if tripe like this makes any money? Is there a web site like IMBD for books where you can look at the gross numbers?
wonderful! Great book!!!!!!!!
Desperately waiting for his next upcoming expose of Republicans:
TAX CHEATING AND THE CHEATING CHEATERS WHO MAKE ALL THE REST OF US PAY MORE.
Anything Goes Trivia
Megaton Man
Trevor
We try to keep things civil in our customer review section, but Al Franken, who apparently trained at the Saturday Night Live school of conflict mediation, didn't get the message in his exclusive video for his book The Truth (with Jokes): see high bandwidth and low bandwidth versions.
