• Choose a category
• All
• Classic-Fiction

By Root 682 0

that has taken over our country. They employ a tried-and-true methodology. First, they concoct an inflammatory story that serves their political goals. (“Al Gore’s a liar.”) They repeat it. (“Al Gore lies again!”) They embellish it. (“Are his lies pathological, or are they merely malicious?”) They try to push it into the mainstream media. All too often, they succeed. (“Tall Tales: Is What We’ve Got Here a Compulsion To Exaggerate?” New York Times, October 15, 2000.) Occasionally, they fail. (Despite their efforts, the mainstream media never picked up the Clinton-as-murderer stories.) But even their failures serve their agenda, as evidence of liberal bias. Win-win. You got to admit. It’s a good racket.

They used these tactics to cripple Clinton’s presidency. They used them to discredit Gore and put Bush into office. And they’re using them now to silence Bush’s critics. Bush is getting away with murder—just like Clinton did. See? That’s how insidious the right-wing modus operandi is. Even I bought into the Clinton murder thing there for a second. And that’s my point. We have to be vigilant.

And we have to be more than vigilant. We have to fight back. We have to expose those who bear false witness for the false witness bearers that they are. And we have to do it in a straightforward, plainspoken way. Let’s call them what they are: liars. Lying, lying liars.

Hence the title of this book: Al Franken Tells It Like It Is.

2

Ann Coulter: Nutcase

I know. You think the chapter title is a little harsh. But, believe me, in Coulter’s case, “nutcase” is more than justified. I should know. You see, Ann and I are friends.

I personally wasn’t aware of that myself until I read it in the New York Observer. They did a profile of Coulter when her bile-filled, relentlessly ugly best-seller Slander topped The New York Times list. And for some reason—I guess to establish her bona fides as just a lovable gal about town—she told the writer from the Observer that she was “friendly with” Al Franken.

I found that odd. I have met Ann Coulter once. At a Saturday Night Live party. When she introduced herself to me, I made what in retrospect was a terrible mistake. Instead of saying, “Ann Coulter! You’re a horrible person. Ooooh, I just hate you!” or something along those lines—instead, I was cordial. For maybe a minute or two.

That is the sum total of my personal interaction with Ann Coulter. And yet, to her, it was enough to include me on a very short list of people she’s “friendly with.” Pathetic, to be sure, but no more dishonest than every other word that comes out of this woman.

Coulter, for those of you lucky enough to not have been exposed to her, is the reigning diva of the hysterical right. Or rather, the hysterical diva of the reigning right. Coulter has appeared on shows like ABC’s This Week, Good Morning America, Hardball, Larry King Live, and The Today Show, to complain, among other things, that conservatives don’t get on TV enough. Her books, like her TV appearances, consist of nonstop rabid frothing. Her first, High Crimes and Misdemeanors: The Case Against Bill Clinton, put her on the radar as an up-and-coming liar.

Her next book, Slander: Liberal Lies About the American Right, argues that liberals use lies and shrill accusations to debase political discourse in America. It’s a fascinating exercise in dishonesty, hypocrisy, and irony of the unintentional sort.

Let’s get right to some examples. And there are examples and examples and examples. Take the dramatic conclusion of Slander. After 206 pages of accusing liberals of, among other awful things, being elitist snobs, she trots out her crowning piece of evidence: proof of The New York Times’s disregard and contempt for what real Americans care about.

The day after seven-time NASCAR Winston Cup champion Dale Earnhardt died in a race at the Daytona 500, almost every newspaper in America carried the story on the front page. Stock-car racing had been the nation’s fastest-growing sport for a decade, and NASCAR the second-most-watched sport behind the NFL. More Americans