Lies & the Lying Liars Who Tell Them_ A Fair & Balanced Look at the Right - Al Franken [147]
Steve Rabin—Kennedy School ’04. Summa cum laude grad from Brandeis. Passionate, committed, my wife called Steve “the catch” from TeamFranken. Steve is a committed activist with a great sense of humor. The Kharap Jhuta chapter was Steve’s idea. Tremendous help on issues of bias. I wish I had used more of Steve’s stuff on Bush’s crony capitalism. It’ll be in the paperback.
Madhu Chugh—Kennedy School ’04. As you can tell from her name and picture, a Texan. A Democrat who has worked for Iowa Governor Tom Vilsack and in the Senate doing health care policy for Senator Ted Kennedy. Winner of all kinds of awards, including University of Texas Outstanding Female Student of the Year 1997–8. Madhu covered the health care front, also the effect of tax cuts in states.
Noah McCormack—College ’04. At first Noah was slightly disruptive because he knows so much about everything that it was unnerving to all of us. Soon, Noah and we adapted and he became an invaluable instant resource when we couldn’t get Norm Ornstein on the phone. A passionate intellectual, Noah’s areas of interest knew no bounds. Though he was particularly helpful on taxes, the estate tax in particular.
Bridger McGaw—Kennedy School ’04. Deputy director of press advance for Al Gore in 2000. Bridger had a genuine dislike for the Bushies and especially their press operation. Worked on 2000 election and changing the tone chapters. He called me “chief” a lot, which made me feel like I knew what I was doing.
Emily Berning—Kennedy School ’03, UC Berkeley Law ’03. Summa cum laude from Wellesley. Emmy is not, as I suggested, a super-feminist. In fact, she’s assembling a cookbook for TeamFranken of Franni’s recipes. Also, she’s not type-A, just amazingly organized, effective, and smart. Emmy worked on the Religious Right, on Ashcroft, and was forced to listen to and watch Sean Hannity. (Also, notice Ben’s hand very low on Emmy’s lap).
x. The small figure in silhouette in the entryway behind the steps is the spy from Karl Rove’s office that always tailed us.
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
This is my fifth book. And it’s my fifth book published by Carole Baron. Thanks for your faith and support. Mitch Hoffman, my editor, is the nicest man I know. Is he a great editor? Read the book. You tell me. Lisa Johnson, publicity director at Dutton—sorry Bill O’Reilly intimidated you. Jean Anne Rose, the Dutton publicist assigned to me—we haven’t worked together yet, but I’m assuming the best. Art director Richard Hasselberger made the beautiful cover and wanted badly to de-splotch O’Reilly. Design director Jaye Zimet made the interior of the book what it is. Production director Bob Wojciechowski turned this thing around in unbelievable time. Managing editor Susan Schwartz held everything together. Editorial director Brian Tart, thank you for your editorial direction. And Rick Willett did the copyediting. Which is why any mistakes are his.
Jonathon Lazear, my agent—I hope this caps off what has been just a great year for you. Gunnar Erickson, my lawyer, had to jump off some rocks to avoid getting bitten by a rattlesnake in Yosemite and landed face-first on a boulder. He’s been useless to me since.
To Alex Jones and all my friends at the Shorenstein Center, thank you. Alex was someone I could always come to for advice. To Edie Holway, who supervises the Fellows, you made my life so much easier while I was at Harvard. Jonathan Moore, who travels the globe doing development work in the Third World and is an inspiration, was my squash partner in Cambridge. He’s seventy and is almost blind in one eye. Guess who usually won? Me! Michael Waldman—great having you next door. Tom Patterson—calm down. Richard Parker—for helping me with Jesus. Nolan