I bought Lies (and the lying liars who tell them) – A fair and balanced look at the right mainly on the basis of its title. So I suppose Frankes does one thing right. Actually, it’s a very readable book. As opposed to Michael Moore, whom I failed to laugh much at, Frankes does make me laugh at his «victims» – though mostly in a incredulous, «how-can-anyone-get-away-with-this» (victims’ actions, not Franken’s) kind of way.
Now, this might not be the most useful book ever. It didn’t make me change my world view in any way (except, perhaps, to think «Please do not let Bush fix the election again!» a little more fervently than I did before). Most of the general ideas Franken presents aren’t news to me, however, getting more details is not a bad thing. For example: It’s pretty obvious to the rest of the world that US media does not have the «liberal bias» that the right claims, but it’s nice to get some numbers. The number of negative stories about Bush vs. the number of negative stories about Gore during the 2000 campaign, for example – with a «liberal bias» you’d think there were more of the former, wouldn’t you? Well, happy searching. And if you can have useful details and such presented in such a way that it makes you laugh, then so much the better.