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

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My letter went out to: 33 Abstinence Heroes II William J. Bennett President George W. Bush Rick Santorum Ralph Reed Condoleezza Rice Bill Frist Pat Robertson Donald Rumsfeld Roy Blunt Tommy Thompson Cardinal Edward Egan Dennis Hastett Rod Paige Tom DeLay Sean Hannity Andrew Card Newt Gingrich James Dobson Dick and Lynn Cheney John Ashcroft Ari Fleischer Trent Lott Don Nichols Karl Rove Arlen Specter Phyllis Schlafly General Norman Schwarzkopf Although I received a few polite regrets, no one had an abstinence story to share with the readers of Savin' It! Also, I got in trouble for using Harvard letterhead.
26 "By Far the Vast Majority of My Tax Cuts Go to Those at the Bottom" You'll remember from Chapter One that in the first debate with Gore then candidate Bush said of his tax cuts, "By far the vast majority of the help goes to those at the bottom end of the economic ladder." In the South Carolina primary debate with John McCain he said, "By far the vast majority of my tax cuts go to those at the bottom end of the spectrum." As you can see, he loved this line. He repeated versions of it everywhere. Shall we parse this statement? Let's start at the end and work backward. "Bottom end of the spectrum." What's that gotta mean? At least the bottom 50 percent, right? Otherwise, the word "bottom" in this context is meaningless. He couldn't have meant the bottom 99 percent, could he? That would just be crazy. How about "majority"? Well, that's unambiguous. It means more than 50 percent. So, so far, at the very least, the bottom half of the American people are getting 50 percent, plus a dollar, of Bush's tax cut. Now let's add "vast." "Vast majority." "Vast" is big. Huge. Like the "vast" reaches of space. Very, very big. So, what's a "vast majority?" 90 percent? 85? It's subjective, I admit. So let's go with a very conservative 70 percent. At this point in our parsing, the bottom 50 percent are getting 70 (give or take) percent of Bush's tax cut. But wait. It's not just a "vast majority." It's by far a vast majority. Okay, let's think about that. What does "by far" mean? When you say a restaurant is "by far" the best steak house in town, you're really saying something. When you tell your spouse that sex with her or him is "by far" the best sex you've ever had, you may not be telling the truth—much in the same way that Bush wasn't in this case—but you are definitely trying to score some points. So I'm going to say that "by far the vast majority of my tax cuts go to those at the bottom" would mean that the poorest 50 percent were getting somewhere in the neighborhood of 85 to 99 percent of Bush's tax cut. That's fair, right? That's a fair parsing. As I said before, the bottom 60 percent got 14.7 percent of that tax cut.
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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
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19 Who Created the Tone? "Scumbag,"
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shed light on some of the clandesti
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Brown had been shot in the back of
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Joe Lockhart, former Clinton press
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No. 20 Did the Tone Chamge?
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Other rumors about McCain that bega
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Rove's innovative approach to campa
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"I know, baby. And I know you love
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22 I Grow Discouraged About the Ton
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Dana Milbank of the Washington Post
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Instead of using this unique moment
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Office." (Evidently, DiIulio never
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The White House had fought hearings
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23 I’m Prudenized Every once in a
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After several mocking references to
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24 Paul Gigot Is Unable to Defend a
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out the Wall Street Journal's cover
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Brady and the assault weapons ban w
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"No," said the kindly nurse. "I did
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Four days earlier, the Wellstone ca
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American Indians did some tribal dr
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like Playboy playmates," the BunnyR
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lican party's most loyal Oaks, pick
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That's it, Rush. The old fallback.
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tainly reverberated into the mainst
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of the Republi can talking heads wh
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"What did you see?" I asked him. "I
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articles—that got it wrong. Some
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our proudest moments of him. When h
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26 I Attend the White House Corresp
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"Oh, really? What?" "Every day, Han
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in listen ing to him sing. About fi
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Don Evans. Evans is among Bush's cl
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couldn't make any sense of it eithe
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to the Pentagon, a trip he had take
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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
Page 193 and 194: "Regular? Eight dumps a day ain't r
Page 195 and 196: "Yes ... sir," said Ashcroft, snapp
Page 197 and 198: "Dirty story'll do." "You want guy-
Page 199 and 200: "Let's get the fuck outta here." "S
Page 201 and 202: "Noooooo!!!!" Bush poured the nitro
Page 203 and 204: "Help! Help me!" Kerry recognized L
Page 205 and 206: the American Enterprise Institute,
Page 207 and 208: Don't get me wrong. Republicans are
Page 209 and 210: You choose the one with the bad for
Page 211 and 212: 31 I’m a Bad Liar I never lie. Th
Page 213 and 214: So the next day, I had Liz call and
Page 215 and 216: Seeing as how we did spend the time
Page 217 and 218: "Well, Doug, I'm not a scientist. B
Page 219 and 220: Andrew understood. "So it's like an
Page 221 and 222: "No. We don't allow it in the dorms
Page 223 and 224: ness and his willingness to call us
Page 225 and 226: Of course, I nodded. Made perfect s
Page 227 and 228: or "moderate" influence in forty-fo
Page 229 and 230: 33 Abstinence Heroes President Bush
Page 231: In these days o£ rampant immoralit
Page 235 and 236: taxes than in income taxes, so this
Page 237 and 238: It got a laugh in Iowa. And a laugh
Page 239 and 240: longest period of economic growth i
Page 241 and 242: e hard to do. It is, however, easy
Page 243 and 244: person who is still alive. The livi
Page 245 and 246: You know who I think the real lucky
Page 247 and 248: ALLISON: No pie for me. I'm on a di
Page 249 and 250: ALLISON: But, you know, Donna, I'd
Page 251: ALLISON: Are you kidding? If she ca
Page 254 and 255: ME: Sure. RICH: Do you fight a lot?
Page 256 and 257: 39 Vast Lagoons of Pig Feces: The B
Page 258 and 259: ing the Clean Water Act's rules to
Page 260 and 261: In 1995, a spill from one of these
Page 262 and 263: 40 I Meet Former First Lady Barbara
Page 264 and 265: After we landed and were getting ou
Page 266 and 267: It's because I think he is his moth
Page 268 and 269: espiratory failure, and more worrie
Page 270 and 271: Perhaps so many Americans believe t
Page 272 and 273: But to be fair to Bush, there's mor
Page 274 and 275: a. There are seventy-two million ch
Page 276 and 277: It is a great racket. And not just
Page 278 and 279: MEET TEAMFRANKEN The fourteen membe
Page 280 and 281: ACKNOWLEDGMENTS This is my fifth bo
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my old classmate from college forme
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