Al Franken is only a name that I am very feintly familiar with, since he’s best known as an American comedian who’s regularly appeared on Saturday Night Live – not a show we get especially in the UK.
I’d read about this book on liberal-leaning websites, so it wasn’t much of a stretch for me to go out and get a copy. Franken takes apart the lies and untruths served up by the prevalent right-wing media in the US in a style not dissimilar to Michael Moore.
Interestingly, it took a little hunting down in Borders on Oxford Street. I first tried the best-sellers on the ground floor. No dice. Then I went upstairs to politics, where there were shelves of books by Moore. No luck again. Finally I traipsed up to the top floor to the media section where once again I was out of luck. Sold out then. But I went to the customer service desk to be told that they had plenty of copies – in humour. Obviously!
As to the book? Well I’ve only had very limited direct experience of that kind of talk radio, and I don’t get Fox News. But I’ve heard Sean Hannity on the net, and hilarious listening it is too. So self-righteous and certain of himself. And I’ve never read a book by Ann Coulter (although I’m never likely to either).
But it’s an excellent read, and the lies depicted through osmosis can be spread quite as easily through the press in Britain as they can in the wider media in the States, and for that reason alone, it should be read.