This is without a doubt the best of Franken's books, and an absolute must-read for anyone concerned about the nature of this nation's current direction under this failing administration.
I hadn't read any of Franken's books until his previous work: "Lies and The Lying Liars Who Tell Them". When I cracked the cover to that book I couldn't put it down. It was smart, witty, and laugh-out-loud funny. But it wasn't his incredible sense of humor and irreverent satire that got me the most excited. Franken was going after the myth of the Liberal Media Bias, and was doing it to fantastic effect!
Nevertheless, though I loved his last book, it had a few drawbacks. One was that it was very tricky at times to tell when he was making something up as satire, and when he was citing real honest-to-God facts. 98% of the time I could easily differentiate, but there were enough times when I spotted things that I knew some less-attentive readers might take literally, potentially even discounting him in the revelation.
In "The Truth", Franken attempts to remedy this, even poking fun at the fact that some readers of "Lies" had made this complaint. He is better about making it much more clear what's a joke and what's a real quote, although-perhaps frighteningly-some of the quotes that might seem to be too unbelievable to be true (from the vice president for example) are word-for-word accurate. When in doubt, the reference section of his book is filled with great information and further sources, and all of his material seems to be very well documented and fact-checked. Great use of in-text signal phrases are very common making sure you know where he's getting the information he's spitting at you, and he also uses footnotes (the real kind, opposed to Coulter's foot/end notes). There is a high degree of intellectual integrity. The majority of the time, he says right in the sentence where that fact is comming from (what book, report, agency etc), and he's very good about making little "to be fair" notes. When in doubt: if he hasn't cited a source and it sounds sarcastic, it's probably just sarcasm.
But this book is light-years beyond Lies. This book is more focused, and more serious in tone, though still exceedingly funny to me. Examples similar to the more over-the-top antics from Lies (such as the abstinence letter-writing fiasco) are nowhere to be found here, a very good thing as it gains him credibility from the reader. Also, "Lies" was mostly attacking right-wing media hypocrites who consistently bully guests and lie to the public to put forward their views while claiming to be the only objective sources on the air (Hannity, O'Reilly, Limbaugh). The book was arguably very soft of the Bush Administration itself, particularly its lack of truly exposing the hypocrisies and liberal contentions over the Iraq War, as well as other big issues. The biggest "Lying Liar" of them all was the one Franken came down weakest. Not so in "The Truth"!!
In this book Franken has the entire Bush Administration, and the Republican Congress in his sites. He exposes massive scandal and corruption on everything from lies and incompetence regarding Iraq (a major, major subject) and a harsh attack of the administration's Social Security plan. Also Franken shows just HOW Bush managed to barely win the 2004 election, using "Fear, Smears, and Queers" (and a lot of shady campaigning). He exposes Tom Delay, Jack Abromoff, and many others of their corruption.
This is new for Franken, and shows his maturity, and his steady movement towards serious political work (a planned run for the senate in 2008) and his new radio talk show. This book is more political, more serious, but every single bit as hilarious as "Lies". His conciseness, creativity, vivid writing, and concrete research tactics make this book a definitive book of the modern progressive movement. It truly deserves it's title, it is THE TRUTH (at least from the perspective of the left). But Franken is fair enough to drop olive branch after olive branch to show he wants to unite America, not divide it. He portrays all his beliefs, and all his arguments against this current administration amid a backdrop of passionate patriotism, proving that Liberals can and DO love this country every bit as much as the Right, and do not deserve the label of "unpatriotic" that their ideology so often gets.
This book is a must-read for any progressive or liberal, especially those that enjoy laughing about things that are only funny in an abstract sense (and life and death serious in reality). But this book is also a fabulous look at the beating heart of liberalism, its charisma, its principles, and its values, and a very solid criticism of our current leaders. Therefore this book is perhaps even a more important read for any casual (or perhaps even firm) Bush supporter, as well as Conservatives, to really understand the other side, and consider that perhaps your own leaders aren't as true to your values as you currently believe.
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- Reviewed in the United States on January 20, 2006
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