The Truth (with jokes) (Paperback)

by Al Franken (Author) "It was a cool, misty day in Boston, Massachusetts, and TeamRadioFranken was riding high..." (more)
Key Phrases: lying liars, battleground states, blue states, Social Security, United States, White House (more...)

Editorial Reviews

Amazon.com Review
Nearly a year after the presidential election of 2004, Al Franken is still checking facts, exposing lies, and trying to clear the record as he sees it. Sneering at President Bush's declaration of a mandate after a two-and-a-half percent victory, he deconstructs Bush's 2004 platform of "fear, smear, and queers," and explains how the president has done some flip-flopping of his own. He offers comment on well-known stories, including the Terri Schiavo case, and some more obscure, such as reports of forced prostitution, indentured servitude, and squalid conditions at clothing factories in Saipan (which is part of the American Commonwealth of the Northern Mariana Islands). Franken focuses on Tom DeLay's connection to the territory and his efforts to prevent bills from being passed that would have required Saipan to follow U.S. labor laws. Iraq, too, is discussed, from its planning stages to the huge sum of money currently unaccounted for, including $8.8 billion missing from the Coalition Provisional Authority's coffers.

On the home front, Franken covers President Bush's attempt at Social Security reform, explaining how they came up with the projected shortfall figure of $11 trillion. For one thing, they adjusted life expectancy to 150 years, while leaving the retirement age at 67: "That's an eighty-three-year retirement. They're never gonna get to that without stem cell research." He also takes some wickedly funny swipes at Karl Rove, lobbyist Jack Abramoff, pundits and hosts such as Rush Limbaugh, Tim Russert, and Sean Hannity, and, of course, President Bush. The Truth succeeds in providing ammunition to liberals and others dissatisfied with the current power base in Washington, D.C.--only this time (with jokes). --Shawn Carkonen

An Exclusive Video for The Truth (with jokes) from Al Franken

We try to keep things civil in our customer review section, but Al Franken, who apparently trained at the Saturday Night Live school of conflict mediation, didn't get the message in his exclusive video for his book The Truth (with Jokes): see high bandwidth and low bandwidth versions.

--This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

From Publishers Weekly
Starred Review. Franken is George W. Bush's worst nightmare: a savvy liberal political satirist and Harvard fellow with a massive readership. Franken and his tireless team of fact-checkers are able to spread The Truth to people who might never pick up books by Eric Alterman (What Liberal Media?), David Brock (Blinded by the Right), Joe Conason (Big Lies), Ron Suskind (The Price of Loyalty) or Richard A. Clarke (Against All Enemies). Debunking the lies and allegations spread by "the right-wing blogosphere, radiosphere and asshole-on-TV-osphere," Franken details how the Bush team won the 2004 election through "smears, fears and queers." Believing that the Bush regime's plan was to "divide Americans to conquer them," Franken has created a reference manual that refutes propaganda issued by an administration he believes "shouldn't be running a small town hardware store much less the world's only remaining superpower." While Franken writes with a razor-sharp wit, his intention is deadly serious: to expose how hypocrisy, bigotry, ineptitude, unchecked corruption and partisan politics have resulted in war, debt and a divided nation. Franken considers the political motives behind the Terri Schiavo case and the distortions behind Bush's campaign to privatize Social Security. Along the way he takes on the Swiftboaters, Bush's fake "mandate," Tom DeLay, Iraq and Karl Rove. Like Jon Stewart's The Daily Show, Franken has the ability to entertain, illuminate and motivate. (Oct. 25)
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

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Product Details

• Paperback: 384 pages
• Publisher: Plume (September 26, 2006)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0452287677
• ISBN-13: 978-0452287679
• Product Dimensions: 8.4 x 5.5 x 0.9 inches
• Shipping Weight: 12.8 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.0 out of 5 stars See all reviews (486 customer reviews)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #571,697 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

88 of 100 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Another winner from Franken, October 25, 2005

By	William S. Harnsberger (Portland, Maine) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

This review is from: The Truth (with jokes) (Hardcover)

I spent all morning reading this. If you liked "Lies," you'll love this.

Republicans, of course, will gnash their teeth and trot our their usual vitriol. They hate facts.

77 of 88 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars The book's funny. The right-wing reviews are funny, too!, October 25, 2005

By	Jay Ring - See all my reviews

This review is from: The Truth (with jokes) (Hardcover)

Thanks to Al Franken, we get the added entertainment of seeing the true-believers register their outrage. The legacy of the Bush era to American well-being already speaks for itself, but it's been a huge boon to comedy. Before, all we had were jokes about oral sex and Big Macs. Funny, yes, but the strange, dark comedy of the Bush administration is of a much higher caliber. The bungling, cronyism and corruption, the malaprops and uncomfortable silences, the chest-thumping on the way into battle and the scattering of the cockroaches when the accountability moments arrive. It's all right to hate government, and it's all right to dismantle it through contempt. But it's just as acceptable to laugh as the emperor is exposed and to take pleasure in the humiliation of those who take no shame from maligning good people and bathing in the blood of innocents. Schadenfreude is the pleasure taken at the misfortune of others. Taking pleasure in just desserts is another thing entirely.

Keep those 1-star reviews coming. They're like a bonus chapter in Al's book.

46 of 51 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars My Hero!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!, November 2, 2005

By	Jenna Wikler "skulker" (Northampton, MA USA) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

This review is from: The Truth (with jokes) (Hardcover)

I agree with some reviewers that this book is slightly more un-funny than his others- but so is the world. The world is extremely un-funny right now. Al is doing something truly heroic here and with his radio show. Even when he's more un-funny than usual, he's still funny. And not only does he know what he's talking about but he has great researchers and fact-checkers working with him to make sure that nothing he says* is erroneous, unlike pretty much every right-winger i've ever read or heard speak. Al is a hero because he's out to save this country and possibly the world. He knows that being funny goes a long way toward getting people to pay attention. Bill O'Reilly will never be funny... even his really bad porn (yes, he writes really bad pornographic novels) is too bad to actually be funny unless it's being read as theatre on the Al Franken Show.

Al Franken is not as radical as some of my other heroes, but he's able to grab a mainstream audience which they are not. Air America Radio is one of those very very few things that gives me the slightest bit of hope for this world, and I hope that Al will keep churning out the books to keep people informed. What other political truth book is so much fun to read on an airplane? His political books are the only ones I can loan to friends which they'll actually read.

I hope to see Al in government soon, with his researching team on his staff. He's one of the few who will be able to get people to pay attention to thing like: we're insane to keep killing our planet and other horrors. He can explain to you just how you got hoodwinked and armed with that knowledge you can hopefully keep from being hoodwinked again. I am so thankful that he's left the world of sketch comedy and committed himself to making talk radio and politics FUN.

*Sometimes he lies, but he always admits it in a footnote. Which makes it funny.