The Truth With Jokes By Al Franken

(Book Review)

I can’t recommend this book highly enough.

Of course I guess it should come as no surprise that I loved this book. I was a huge fan of Franken’s previous book “Lies and the Lying Liars Who Tell Them.” As evidenced by the fact that I wrote about it on the blog here, quoted a lengthy section of it here, and even wrote a review of it for the local Tombo Times in Oita, which can be read here.

(While I’m plugging Al Franken, his book “Rush Limbaugh is a Big Fat Idiot” is good for a few laughs as well. Not quite as good as the other two, and a bit dated, but I still got a couple chuckles out of it).

Franken’s books are liberal polemics, and I guess that’s enough to turn a lot of people off right there. In today’s climate of trench political warfare, I’m worried his books might not be read by the people who need to read them the most. In fact I think I can guarantee it.

I suppose I should clear something up first. Lots of people sometimes accuse me of only reading liberal screeds. Actually I do read a lot of conservative polemics as well. This past year alone I read two books by Bill O’Reilly, one book by Pat Buchanan, and one book by Dick Morris. Say what you want of me, I do make an effort to read across the spectrum.

(Now you could argue, with some justification, that when I read a liberal book I’m gearing myself up to agree with it, and when I read a conservative book I’m mentally preparing to disagree with everything in it. But so sue me. I’m human, I have my biases.)

Anyway, I do try and read across the spectrum. And you should too. So if you’re conservative, or undecided, I challenge you to read this book. If you take me up on it, I’ll pledge to read (and review on this blog) whatever conservative book you recommend. We’ll call it the “Joel Conservative Book Challenge.”

I can handle polemic books, as long as they’re honest polemics. I figure everyone has some sort of ax to grind, so I don’t mind books that are coming from a particular perspective.

I try and avoid dishonest polemics. I figure there’s no point in putting my time and energy into a book that’s only going to make me stupider and less informed. Like say, a book by Ann Coulter (perhaps the stupidest person on earth). My philosophy is, I don’t have time to read authors who don’t have time to get their facts straight. 　(Although again, if you take my challenge, I’ll read anything you recommend).

Phil once said, “I make a point of reading commentators from across the spectrum, and consistently find weaker arguments, a higher number of outright factual errors, and more ad hominem attacks from my reading on the right.” I’d agree with this. You could call it the Swagman-Christman thesis. (I mean the Christman-Swagman thesis. Sorry Phil). Call us biased if you want. There just seems to be an awful lot of crap produced by the Coulters-O’Reillys-and-Limbaughs of the world. I have yet to see anything of the same scale on the left. And, since a large amount of people actually consume and believe this stuff, its necessary to have Franken on the other side calling pointing out their blatant lies. In other words, I don’t think Franken is contributing to the decline of civility in the culture wars. I think he’s fighting a necessary fight.

From what fact checking and internet searching I’ve been able to do, Franken himself seems pretty honest. Ann Coulter responded to some of his accusations, but only seemed to prove his point. Bill O’Reilly, rather than respond, walked off the NPR show when Terry Gross tried to ask him about the criticisms. (It’s a couple years old now, but if you haven’t heard the Terry Gross/ Bill O’Reilly interview, this ones a classic. Check it out).
Even the fact checkers at Spin-Sanity only gave Franken mild criticism. “Given Franken's stated dedication to getting his facts straight, one is left with the feeling that he is using his humor to imply things he can't honestly argue for.” And that’s true. He does do that. But I can live with that.

I’ll be honest I haven’t fact checked every word of “The Truth with Jokes”, but I did a couple searches and I have yet to find any huge holes in it.

The only mild criticisms I would have are:
1). This is a list of everything the Bush administration and Republicans did wrong. You won’t find anything they did right, so it’s unbalanced in that way. But it’s a polemic and a satire, so I guess you get what you paid for.
2). Occasionally Franken will switch back and forth from lies the bush administration tells to lies that right wing political pundits tell. If you’re reading it fast and not paying attention, you could get the impression that the Bush administration is responsible for all of these.
3). Franken puts too much faith in the Democratic Party. He believes all the problems will be solved if the Democrats get back in power. And he believes if the Democrats hadn’t lost congress in 1994, they would have solved the Saipan sweatshop problems.
I’m somewhat more skeptical. I’m older and wiser than 2000, and won’t go for a 3rd party candidate again. Rather I think it’s better to work for change within the Democratic Party. But let’s not forget what drove many of us to the Greens in the first place.

Other than that the book is brilliant. Not only is it really funny, Franken absolutely nails the Bush Administration and the Republicans on hundreds of lies and consistencies. Some of this is old hat, but Franken does a good job of recounting it.

Such as the way the Bush team completely ignored the warnings before 9/11, and then ran on 9/11 in the 2004 election. Or how, rather than take Roosevelt’s “The only thing we have is fear itself” idea, they deliberately frightened the voters and told them they would all die if Kerry was elected. Cheney speaking before the election:
“It’s absolutely essential that eight weeks from today, on November 2, we make the right choice, because if we make the wrong choice then the danger is that we’ll get hit again, and we’ll be hit in a way that will be devastating from the standpoint of the United States.”

Franken goes after the blatant dirty tricks in the election, the numerous lies in the bush campaign ads. And then how George “2.5%” Bush won on “the most narrow election victory by an incumbent president in the history of the republic,” and then proceeded to claim “broad nationwide victory” and a clear mandate for his agenda. And then proceeded to advance issues like social security, which had almost nothing to do with the election.

And speaking of social security, Franken debunks Bush’s plan completely
On Bush’s claim of a liability of $11 trillion dollars: “Where did that number come from? Well, it came from the Social Security Administration. Bush’s social security Administration. And the number, $11 trillion, represented the total Social Security shortfall, adjusted for inflation, from now until the infinity.
That’s right. The year infinity. Not the year 2018. Not the year 3018. Not the year 3,000,018. No. The year [infinity]….In order to get that number, $11 trillion over infinity years, they had to assume that people would live to an average age of 150, but still retire at 67.”

We’re so used to politicians lying to us, I think we have forgotten to be outraged about it. I mean, here is our President, elected to serve the people, using our tax dollars to try and deceive us. And remember when Bush tried claiming that Social Security was inherently unfair to Black people, because Black people died on average at 69, and so only had two years to withdraw?

“First of all, the study assumed that every African-American man would live to exactly sixty-nine years of age, and then drop dead…[But] black men who reach sixty-seven have a life expectancy of seventy-nine….[And] Social security doesn’t just pay retirement benefits. It also pays disability and survivor benefits….African Americans are much more likely than whites to receive both…So, leaving out disability and survivor benefits would skew things a bit, don’t ya think? Well, guess what? Somehow [they] forgot to include them.”

I’m almost tempted to quote the whole book, there are so many disgusting examples here, from lying about the war, to blatant War profiteering, to just plain incompetence. It needs to be read in its entirety to get the whole feel for everything the Bush administration has lied about. As Franken summarizes in his conclusion:

“Let’s face it. You can’t count on them to give you straight information. You can’t count on them to tell us straight why we’re going to war. You can’t count on them to tell us what’s happening over there. You can’t count on them to do their homework. To keep track of our money. You can’t count on them to punish war profiteers. You can’t count on them to protect our troops. You can’t rely on them for much of anything. Armor. Veterans’ benefits. You can’t count on them for the true story of how Jessica Lynch was captured, or how Pat Tillman died. Even for how the “Mission Accomplished” sign went up on the USS Abraham Lincoln. They actually lied about that.
You can’t count on them to count terrorist attacks. You can’t count on them to count civilian victims. You can’t count on them to listen to civilian commanders and send in enough troops, or listen to Colin Powell and not torture people, or not to lie about whether torture policies started at the top….You can’t trust them to do the work of actually signing killed-in-action letters. You can’t trust them not to lie about not signing killed-in-action letters.”

Almost all of these points, although listed in rant form here, are expounded on and fleshed out in the book. And many others.

Although it’s somewhat old news after the fall of Delay, what I found the most disgusting was Delay’s defense of the sweatshops in Saipan where, among other indignities, woman are forced to have abortions. Tom “forced abortions” Delay killed bills that would have protected Saipan workers, and blocked Peter Hoekstra’s fact finding trip to Saipan.

Franken summarizes this nicely: “On the mainland, Tom Delay doesn’t want women to be able to choose to have an abortion. On Saipan, he thinks it’s okay if they can’t choose not to.”
Although Franken acknowledges this wasn’t about Conservative principles so much as political corruption, I’ve encountered the same sentiment myself at the grass roots level. When I wrote this article in the Chimes defending a woman’s right to choose, a conservative friend told me that a Christian couldn’t write that. Later, when Bork and I were escorted out of Woodland mall for distributing fliers that alerted people to the forced abortions in GAP sweatshops, the same friend yelled at me, “Why can’t you just leave that company alone? They have every right to do what they’re doing, and it’s none of your business.”

Link of the Day
The scandal surrounding disgraced lobbyist Jack Abramoff has shaken up Capitol Hill. But it still poses significant problems for the Bush White House.
A court hearing scheduled later this month may bring fresh attention to the case of former White House aide David Safavian, who is charged with lying in connection with a golf trip Mr. Abramoff arranged. Justice Department officials haven't closed their review of actions by former Interior Department official J. Steven Griles, who disputes claims that he favored Abramoff clients, such as Native American tribes involved in casinos. Calls for the White House to release photos of Mr. Abramoff with the president -- and details of his contacts with presidential aides including Karl Rove -- haven't abated.
"Their refusal to release information is inexcusable," says Tom Fitton, president of conservative legal organization Judicial Watch. As a result, the scandal "is now in the White House.
(Complete Article Here)

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