Lies: And the Lying Liars Who Tell Them: A Fair and Balanced Look at the Right
Author: Al Franken
or the first time since his bestselling RUSH LIMBAUGH IS A BIG FAT IDIOT, Franken trains his subversive wit directly on the contemporary political scene. Now, the "master of political humor" (Washington Post) destroys the myth of liberal bias in the media and exposes how the Right shamelessly tries to deceive the rest of us. No one is spared as Al uses the Right's own words against them: not Ann Coulter, Bill O'Reilly, Roger Ailes, the entire Fox network nor the Bush administration. This is the book Al Franken fans have been waiting for (and his foes have been dreading).
The New York Times
Note to Bill O'Reilly, the de facto publicist for Lies thanks to Fox News's hapless efforts to block its publication: Never say "Never said it" or "You can't find a transcript where I said it" when a man with 14 researchers is on your trail. In a book that baits its targets with varying degrees of success, Mr. Franken makes a bull's-eye out of Mr. O'Reilly. First the prize: he shows how Mr. O'Reilly's erroneous claim that he won a Peabody Award evolved into even bigger fibs once it was challenged. — Janet Maslin
The Washington Post
This guy Al Franken is nasty. He's mean. He's vicious. He is, in short, the perfect guy to write a book attacking America's nasty, mean, vicious right-wing pols, pundits and preachers. But Franken has something that his targets conspicuously lack -- a sense of humor. This book is laugh-out-loud funny. — Peter Carlson
Library Journal
Franken returns to the political arena with his best book yet. Along with the 14 Harvard students who make up "Team Franken," he employs a somewhat unique approach in writing this work: fact-checking and research to back up his satirical look at the right. The first major target he tackles is the myth that the media are liberal; a brief look at the 2000 presidential election debacle should be enough to convince most rational people to the contrary. Fortunately, Franken has many more examples. His appearances on C-SPAN have shown what happens when conservative talk-show host Bill O'Reilly tries to use his vocal bullying tactics on a professional satirist. The author covers this event and other media misrepresentations with wit and humor. The chapters on Bush's tax cuts, environmental record, and the ongoing war will help convince the listener that it wasn't just Al Gore who was bushwhacked in Florida. Sure to be a hit with Franken's many fans, this program is highly recommended for all libraries. For those not blinded by the right, this will serve as a wake-up call to look further than the local paper or TV news coverage for topics that matter.-Theresa Connors, Arkansas Tech Univ., Russellville Copyright 2004 Reed Business Information.
Book review: Chinese Business Groups or Sports Franchise Game
The Great Comeback: How Abraham Lincoln Beat the Odds to Win the 1860 Republican Nomination
Author: Gary Ecelbarger
In the fall of 1858, Abraham Lincoln looked to be anything but destined for greatness. Just shy of his fiftieth birthday, Lincoln was wallowing in the depths of despair following his loss to Stephen Douglas in the 1858 senatorial campaign and was taking stock in his life. The author takes us on a journey with Abraham Lincoln from the last weeks of 1858 until the end of May in 1860, on the road to his unlikely Republication presidential nomination.
In tracing Lincoln's steps from city to city, from one public appearance to the next along the campaign trail, we see the future president shape and polish his public persona. Although he had accounted himself well in the famous Lincoln-Douglas debates, the man from Springfield, Illinois, he was nevertheless seen as the darkest of dark horses for the highest office in the land. Upon hearing Lincoln speak, one contemporary said, “I will not say he reminded me of Satan, but he certainly was the ungodliest figure I had ever seen." The reader sees how this "ungodliest" of figures shrewdly spun his platform to crowds far and wide and, in doing so, became a public celebrity on par with any throughout the land.
This is a story teeming with drama and intrigue about an event that no one could fathom occurring today...yet it absolutely happened in with America seven score and eight years ago, when Lincoln, the man, took his first steps on the way toward becoming Abraham Lincoln, the legendary leader and most respected president of American history.
Kirkus Reviews
Civil War historian Ecelbarger (Three Days in the Shenandoah: Stonewall Jackson at Front Royal and Winchester, 2008, etc.) looks at the remarkable campaign that propelled Honest Abe to the presidency. Having been defeated twice in four years for his bid to the U.S. Senate-against Stephen A. Douglas-Illinois attorney Lincoln was in a low point of his career by late 1858. His improbable rise to win the Republican Party's nomination for president by 1860-against the great favorite, New York Senator William Seward-makes a compelling story, which is skillfully delineated by Ecelbarger. The future president's debates with Douglas, a proponent of the controversial Kansas-Nebraska Act of 1854, made Lincoln nationally famous, and proved to be the catalyst for his success. Committed friends like Jesse Fell and Judge David Davis kept his name on the back burner, concealing his true ambition, while in the name of party unity Lincoln modified his anti-slavery views, distancing himself from the abolitionists, whose stance he believed spelled political suicide. He also had to backpedal from his controversial "House Divided" speech of the previous year ("A house divided against itself cannot stand"), which seemed to presage civil war. The build-up to the nomination required Lincoln to travel outside the state of Illinois to court the press, as Ecelbarger amply demonstrates. The author creates a sympathetic, humane portrait of this ungainly character who did not like to discuss his humble upbringing and spoke instead about the demoralizing influence of slavery in clear, earnest terms. At the Republican convention in Chicago in May 1860, the committed but underfinanced Lincoln team confronted the Sewardjuggernaut and carried the day. Ecelbarger's informed, readable account will appeal to both scholars and amateur historians. A pertinent history lesson, especially in this election year. Agent: Ed Knappman/New England Publishing Associates
Table of Contents:
Bloomington, Illinois: December 1858 1
1 Recovery 9
2 Divided House 32
3 Chase's Backyard 54
4 The Giant Killer 77
5 Birth of a Boom 91
6 Winter Heat 109
7 Seward's Backyard 131
8 The Candidate 154
9 The Rail Splitter 176
10 Convention Week 189
11 The Wigwam 215
12 The Nominee 232
Endnote Abbreviations 243
Bibliography 267
Index 275
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