Lies and the Lying Liars who Tell Them:
A Fair and Balanced Look at the Right
By Al Franken
E. P. Dutton
368 pages
$24.95 hardcove

n light of the recent election and the upcoming presidential campaign, we thought it might be good for us to be a little less poetic and a little more political. For some this task is easy-for us it's comparable to brushing our teeth with sandpaper. In other words, "grit yer teeth, folks, cause this is gonna hurt!" Who better to aid our painful transition than funnyman Al Franken?

Franken is good enough, smart enough, and doggonnit, everyone hates him.

In his number one New York Times best-selling book, Lies and the Lying Liars who Tell Them: A Fair and Balanced Look at the Right, Franken takes a rather insightful view of modern political bollocks-we mean dialogue. Lies, as the title (a parody of titles like Slander and Bias) suggests, examines the various spins, misstatements, exaggerations and downright prevarications that the pundits and politicians in the conservative media have tried to pass along as the truth. He destroys the myth of that much-talked-about liberal bias in the media and clearly states how the right (or wrong) tries to pull the wool over our eyes again and again.

Franken offers a unique and witty tone from his rare position as the media's only liberal political comedy writer and performer who is also a Harvard fellow. It is one thing to read about right-wing lies from a journalist, but another from Franken's sardonic point of view. This is, by far, Franken's most ambitious book to date. In fact, the book is so ambitious Franken needed 14 Harvard grads and undergrads (TeamFranken, as he calls them) to help with the research. As we here at TeamRED (or Teambookreview, we haven't quite decided on that one) have been carrying this book around for the past few days, we've amounted no less than 25 different comments by strangers who think the book "is the funniest book they've ever read" or "super thought-provoking" or "a piece of shit wrapped in an ugly cover."

Franken is at his very best as a comedian and a storyteller, and Lies shines when Franken is making his point by spinning a funny yarn or an anecdote. Our favorite bits were the chapters in which he presents Ann Coulter as a "nutcase" and Bill O'Reilly as a "lying, splotchy bully." And let us not forget when he metaphorically "bitch-slaps" Bernie Goldberg, author of Bias: A CBS Insider Exposes How the Media Distort the News, or when he, along with a fellow TeamFranken member goes undercover to Bob Jones University.

The cleverest part of the book, however, is the comic titled, "The Gospel of Supply Side Jesus." It's a damn funny piece of comedy about supply-side economics, the belief that tax cuts cause economic growth and allow entrepreneurs to invest their savings which in turn supposedly creates higher productivity, jobs and profits.

Lies is by far Franken's most serious work. It is also his least funny. In that aspect, Lies is a change of pace from his earlier work. It's like that "Daily Show" episode where Jon Stewart is hilarious for the first 15 minutes, and then gets oddly serious during the interview with John Stossel. It's a weird change of pace that often throws the audience off balance.

However, that doesn't mean the seriousness in question is uncalled for. On the contrary, it's amazing that Al Franken, Michael Moore, Jon Stewart, Tom Tomorrow, Arianna Huffington and Jim Hightower can make politics, undoubtedly a serious subject, funny in the first place. And because these are serious times we're living in, especially for liberals, it's understandable that Franken would get more serious in Lies than he has in the past.

If you lean to the left or to the right or sit in the middle, Franken's book is a good read. Even if you disagree with him, it will fuel you with debatable topics to think about during the next year as we elect a new president (please note the new), and it will make you feel something other than that ever-present political jadedness that seems to plague young voters. If anything, this book will piss you off either way and in this case, we think that's good.
hayley@red-mag.com
jordan@red-mag.com