|
Loading... The Truthby Al Franken
LibraryThing recommendationsMember recommendationsLoading...
won't like
will probably not like
will probably like
will like
will love Sign up for LibraryThing to find out whether you'll like this book.  madamejeanie | Sep 18, 2008 |  I didn't think this book was as funny as his other books. Al has gotten a little angry and bitter (with good reason) and it comes through in this book. I listened to the audio book, which Franken reads and I could barely stand to listen to his Dick Cheney impression. It's even more grating than listening to the real Dick Cheney! But overall it was still a good book and I feel like I learned a lot about the 2004 election from it. (  ) mcelhra | Aug 29, 2008 | I'm not sure which is more obnoxious, Al Franken's continuous hammering of the Bush administration or the Bush administration itself. (Not that the Bush administration doesn't deserve some hammering, but it got obnoxious after about 2/3rds of the book) (  ) dvf1976 | Apr 24, 2008 | Al gets angrier and less funny with every book. This book includes a footnote that says something to the effect of "here is one joke, can you find the other one?". Unfortunately, that is correct. I don't blame Al for getting angrier and angrier (or more and more serious) about the direction the country is taking, but I miss the light-hearted days when he could just make fun of the multiple marriages and hypocrisies of prominent Republicans. ( )1  DevourerOfBooks | Jan 24, 2008 | Essays by the humourist and political candidate. As funny and as sharp as ever. Fledgist | Oct 14, 2007 | 
 He is really quite witty—which is much better than being funny—when he is being purely political. But he is barely even funny when funny is all he is trying to be.
Amazon.com (ISBN 0525949062, Hardcover)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
(retrieved from Amazon Fri, 24 Apr 2009 07:57:54 -0400) The first test round has been closed. Visit the Open Shelves Classification group for details. |
|
|||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Wikipedia in English (1)
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.
Franken's wit was razor sharp and right on the money. His intelligence was
obvious and, while the stuff he wrote was funny, it was also well thought
out. Something has happened to him. I think it is his Air America
satellite radio program. He's got "the big head" (as my mother used to call
it), so full of himself and his own importance that he's got nothing to say.
Between the back-slapping he does to himself and the truly hateful way he
has of saying things now, he comes off sounding like a Rush Limbaugh clone,
just sitting on the other side of the fence. He should go sit next to Ann
Coulter at the next dinner party because he's getting to be just as nasty
and mean-spirited as she is. Bah. (