Franken-Lies-And-the-Lying-Liars-Who-Tell

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might think that Peggy "20,000 people" Noonan would have called back to apologize for her misrepresentation. And she did. No, she didn't. She's awful. Next call was to Christopher Caldwell, the Weekly Standard author of the "20,000 booed a succession of people" quote. Caldwell had written on behalf of the editors to give the official Weekly Standard take on the memorial. He said that viewers "tuned in on television to watch a solemn commemoration and found a rally devoted to a politics that was twisted, pagan, childish, inhumane, and even totalitarian beyond their worst nightmares." He compared Kahn's speech to "a Maoist reeducation camp," a "sinister incident, unexampled in recent American politics." He labeled the crowd a "mob." He said that "one of our major political parties, or at least a sizable wing of it, appeared to be dancing a jig on the grave of a particularly beloved fallen comrade." "Most of those who watched this spectacle," Caldwell wrote authoritatively, "felt a disgust bordering on shame." style. Huh. Why did he say "most of those" instead of "most of us"? Probably a question of More bizarrely and libelously, Caldwell wrote, "The pilots and aides who died with him were barely treated at all." That was just crazy. There were long, beautiful eulogies about each of the aides. In fact, the speeches about Paul didn't start until nearly three hours into the broadcast. A friend who had watched on TV told me, "I was wondering when they would get to Paul already." (Yes, my friend is Jewish.) How could Caldwell have overlooked the first three hours? It was all so puzzling. But then a question occurred to me. Tucker hadn't seen the memorial before he talked about it on national TV. Peggy, it seemed anyway, hadn't actually seen Trent Lott get booed. And as TeamFranken was researching this chapter, the whole nastiness with Jayson Blair hit The New York Times. Blair, as you will remember, was busted for making things up about events he hadn't actually seen. Could it be, I wondered, that Caldwell, writing on behalf of the editors of one of America's preeminent conservative journals, hadn't even seen the memorial? Caldwell called me back. I asked him about the "pagan" characterization. Had he seen the ecumenical prayer at the beginning? No. I asked him about the "crowd of 20,000 booing." Had he seen that? No. How about the eulogies for the aides? Had he seen any of those? No.
"What did you see?" I asked him. "I saw it on TV." "On TV? Did you see it live?" "No." "Did you see a replay of it on C-SPAN?" "No. Listen, I hate to sound like I'm trying to get off the phone, but I'm on deadline." "Oh, I'm sorry. Thanks for calling back. Tell you what. When you need to get off, just tell me, and we'll end it there for now." "Okay." "So, did you see a tape of it?" "No. I saw it on TV" "On TV What does that mean?" "I saw it on TV" "So ... you saw clips of it on TV shows?" "Yes." "That's it? That's all you saw?" "Listen. I got to go. I have two deadlines." "Okay. Thanks. Good luck with your deadlines. One last thing, though." "Sure." "Your magazine is called the Weekly Standard. Doesn't that mean you should have high standards?" "Actually, the 'Standard' refers to a flag or banner, you know, to rally around." "Yeah. But I'll bet they come from the same root word." "You're probably right. But I got to go." "Okay. Thanks again. I'll call you." "Sure." That's the last I heard from him. I called him the next day, and then every business day for the next two weeks. He must have been in a real crunch on a book or something.
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LIES (And the Lying Liars Who Tell
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"No problem," Harvard said absentmi
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God chose me to write this book. IN
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1 Hummus Asking whether there is a
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There is, however, a right-wing med
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page. Stock-car racing had been the
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Now, in fairness to Coulter, this k
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an editorial on Thomas titled, "The
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as in an actual chainsaw massacre).
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• And so is "half-wit" Jim Jeffor
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4 Liberals Who Hate America That's
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World War 11) And the ninety combat
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• Civil War reenactments—weird
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6 I Bitch-Slap Bernie Goldberg In J
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So, I, the comedian, bothered to lo
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Why, Bernie asks on page 57, is Rus
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Sure enough, a few hours later, ano
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Okay. Got it. Armed with both our M
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should have been an enormous credit
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national law to clean up hazardous
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SLATER: Governor, were you ever arr
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"All I know is that's what he told
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8 Conclusion: A Lesson Learned As t
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say they're to the right on economi
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10 Chapter for American Book by Kha
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12 The Chapter on Fox They Distort,
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Angered by Murdoch's apparent lack
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ports on Capitol Hill), and Mara Li
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"Look," I said, "I want them to tak
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She laughed. "No, Inside Edition ha
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I'd found four separate incidents w
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So I asked Bill where he grew up. W
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On February 26, 2001, O'Reilly defe
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Rap artist Ludacris never had the p
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When the last lie had been apologiz
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comment on. Instead, he asked Peggy
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For some reason, that set me off, a
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"When you look at schools in relati
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Ollie North—decorated for courage
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The debate over vouchers isn't abou
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Let's parse that sentence. It seems
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ence" number, 3.1 percent. The fact
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Wait. Must be the October 21, 2002,
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so instead of driving back, I playe
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Motberfuckers!, due out in October
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al Qaeda cells in more than twenty
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The final al Qaeda attack of the Cl
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16 Operation Ignore Bill Clinton's
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Homeland Security Agency with respo
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on August 3, after signing off on a
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eight programs, less than half deal
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18 Humor in Uniform As I said, I've
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"But it's funny!" As a comedian, th
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do. And fortunately, there were no
Page 109 and 110: 19 Who Created the Tone? "Scumbag,"
Page 111 and 112: shed light on some of the clandesti
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Page 115 and 116: Joe Lockhart, former Clinton press
Page 117 and 118: No. 20 Did the Tone Chamge?
Page 119 and 120: Other rumors about McCain that bega
Page 121 and 122: Rove's innovative approach to campa
Page 123 and 124: "I know, baby. And I know you love
Page 125 and 126: 22 I Grow Discouraged About the Ton
Page 127 and 128: Dana Milbank of the Washington Post
Page 129 and 130: Instead of using this unique moment
Page 131 and 132: Office." (Evidently, DiIulio never
Page 133 and 134: The White House had fought hearings
Page 135 and 136: 23 I’m Prudenized Every once in a
Page 137 and 138: After several mocking references to
Page 139 and 140: 24 Paul Gigot Is Unable to Defend a
Page 141 and 142: out the Wall Street Journal's cover
Page 143 and 144: Brady and the assault weapons ban w
Page 145 and 146: "No," said the kindly nurse. "I did
Page 147 and 148: Four days earlier, the Wellstone ca
Page 149 and 150: American Indians did some tribal dr
Page 151 and 152: like Playboy playmates," the BunnyR
Page 153 and 154: lican party's most loyal Oaks, pick
Page 155 and 156: That's it, Rush. The old fallback.
Page 157 and 158: tainly reverberated into the mainst
Page 159: of the Republi can talking heads wh
Page 163 and 164: articles—that got it wrong. Some
Page 165 and 166: our proudest moments of him. When h
Page 167 and 168: 26 I Attend the White House Corresp
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Page 171 and 172: in listen ing to him sing. About fi
Page 173 and 174: Don Evans. Evans is among Bush's cl
Page 175 and 176: couldn't make any sense of it eithe
Page 177 and 178: to the Pentagon, a trip he had take
Page 179 and 180: 28 Bush Can't Lose with Clinton's M
Page 181 and 182: The commanders then send the target
Page 183 and 184: If called on by the commander in ch
Page 185 and 186: This is me in Vietnam. Sorry the fo
Page 187 and 188: Van Cong River. Mekong Delta, South
Page 189 and 190: As Gore watched helplessly, it almo
Page 191 and 192: "That doesn't make sense," Gore sai
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Page 195 and 196: "Yes ... sir," said Ashcroft, snapp
Page 197 and 198: "Dirty story'll do." "You want guy-
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Page 201 and 202: "Noooooo!!!!" Bush poured the nitro
Page 203 and 204: "Help! Help me!" Kerry recognized L
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Page 207 and 208: Don't get me wrong. Republicans are
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31 I’m a Bad Liar I never lie. Th
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So the next day, I had Liz call and
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Seeing as how we did spend the time
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"Well, Doug, I'm not a scientist. B
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Andrew understood. "So it's like an
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"No. We don't allow it in the dorms
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ness and his willingness to call us
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Of course, I nodded. Made perfect s
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or "moderate" influence in forty-fo
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33 Abstinence Heroes President Bush
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In these days o£ rampant immoralit
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26 "By Far the Vast Majority of My
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taxes than in income taxes, so this
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It got a laugh in Iowa. And a laugh
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longest period of economic growth i
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e hard to do. It is, however, easy
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person who is still alive. The livi
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You know who I think the real lucky
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ALLISON: No pie for me. I'm on a di
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ALLISON: But, you know, Donna, I'd
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ALLISON: Are you kidding? If she ca
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ME: Sure. RICH: Do you fight a lot?
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39 Vast Lagoons of Pig Feces: The B
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ing the Clean Water Act's rules to
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In 1995, a spill from one of these
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40 I Meet Former First Lady Barbara
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After we landed and were getting ou
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It's because I think he is his moth
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espiratory failure, and more worrie
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Perhaps so many Americans believe t
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But to be fair to Bush, there's mor
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a. There are seventy-two million ch
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It is a great racket. And not just
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MEET TEAMFRANKEN The fourteen membe
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ACKNOWLEDGMENTS This is my fifth bo
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my old classmate from college forme
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