Lies & the Lying Liars Who Tell Them_ A Fair & Balanced Look at the Right - Al Franken [1]
I couldn’t think of anything less appealing than molding the minds of tomorrow’s leaders, unless it was spending fireside evenings sipping sherry with great minds at the Faculty Club. Yawn.
To my surprise and delight, though, all Harvard wanted me to do was show up every once in a while and write something about something. That gave me an idea.
“Would it be okay if I wrote a scathingly partisan attack on the right-wing media and the Bush administration?”
“No problem,” Harvard said absentmindedly.
“Count me in,” I replied. “From now on call me ‘Professor Franken.’ ”
“No,” Harvard said, “you’re not a professor. But you can run a study group on the topic of your choosing.”
“Great,” I said. “I’ve got the perfect topic: Write My Son’s Harvard College Application Essay.”
“No,” they said. “Harvard students already know how to write successful Harvard applications, Al. We want you to teach them something new.”
Harvard was right where I wanted it. “How about if the topic is: How to Research My Book?”
“Sure,” Harvard said. “Most of our professors teach that course. Why, in the Biochemistry department, most of the graduate level courses are—”
Harvard was boring me. “I gotta run, Harvard. Thanks.”
From among the seven hundred students who applied for my study group, I chose fourteen intellectual heavyweights. Some undergraduates, some from the prestigious Kennedy School of Government, and one from the Harvard School of Dentistry, just in case. This was TeamFranken. Like the X-Men, each had his own special power. And each had a story.
There was Bridger McGaw, a Gore campaign veteran still sore from getting burned in Florida. Madhu Chugh, with a mind as insatiable as her name is unpronounceable. Emmy Berning, an ultra-feminist with a stunning résumé—and a figure to match. Ben Kane and Ben Wikler, “the Bens,” TeamFranken’s gay gladiators, whose fierce love for each other fueled their ceaseless advocacy of justice for gays, lesbians, the transgendered, bisexuals, and man-on-dog enthusiasts, such as Pennsylvania senator Rick Santorum. And the rest.
There were fourteen in all. Tough, smart, and deeply committed to coming to my Cambridge apartment once a week to eat a delicious hot meal cooked by my wife, Franni.
I felt like I had fourteen children. My fourteen Harvard research assistants. And like every good parent, I loved each in a different way. Some I loved like the irrepressibly mischievous child who doesn’t do his homework. Others I loved like the good, deserving child who does all of his homework, mows the lawn, and ghostwrites the chapters. And still others I loved “more” than the rest, the way a parent secretly chooses favorites and undermines the self-confidence of the others.
No, I wasn’t a perfect leader. But what counts for me, and I hope for you, the reader, is that this book brings to a new level the politics of personal destruction that have come to define our era. Because with fourteen researchers, I could do something that my targets seem incapable of doing—get my facts straight. Nothing highlighted the need for painstaking research and fact-checking more than the hiring process itself, which I had conducted on the basis of hearsay and guesswork. For example, the “Bens” turned out not to be gay. And one, Owen, wasn’t even named Ben.
Thanks to TeamFranken, you can rest assured that almost every fact in this book is correct. Either that, or it’s a joke. If you think you’ve found something that rings untrue, you’ve probably just missed a hilarious joke, and should blame yourself rather than me or TeamFranken.
Enjoy.
INTRODUCTION
God chose me to write this book.
Just the fact that you are reading this is proof not just of God’s existence, but also of His/Her/Its beneficence. That’s right. I am not certain of God’s precise gender. But I am certain that He/She/It chose me to write this book.
This isn’t hubris. I’m not saying this in an egotistical way. God didn’t choose me because