# Ann Coulter v. Al Franken **URL:** \ **Category:** Great Debates\ **Created:** [October 11, 2003, 3:04am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ann-coulter-v-al-franken/206789 "2003-10-11T03:04:54Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 3
**Author:** ![Revtim](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/revtim/32/1042_2.png) [@Revtim](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Revtim)\ **Post date:** [October 12, 2003, 4:18pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ann-coulter-v-al-franken/206789/41 "2003-10-12T16:18:02Z")
I always liked Franken, but fooling Coulter with that endnote bit is pure art. Truly beautiful. ---
**Author:** ![vanilla](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/v/f19dbf/32.png) [@vanilla](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/vanilla)\ **Post date:** [October 12, 2003, 6:58pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ann-coulter-v-al-franken/206789/42 "2003-10-12T18:58:55Z")
I am in the middle of the book right now(from the library) and its great. He documents the lies of O’Reilly, Coulter, hannity et al. And he’s funny. ---
**Author:** ![St.Urho](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/8e7dd6/32.png) [@St.Urho](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/St.Urho)\ **Post date:** [October 12, 2003, 10:29pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ann-coulter-v-al-franken/206789/43 "2003-10-12T22:29:32Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by Diogenes the Cynic \* > \*\*Yeah, Franken uses only a single endnote in his book and he does it precisely to make a point about Coulter’s practice of hiding crucial information in endnote. I loaned my copy out so i don’t remember the exact wording but once you locate the endnote that explains that Evan Thomas is the _grandson_ of Norman Thomas, it’s followed by a quip about how hard it was to find the endnote. Coulter apparently got whooshed by her own pet tactic. \*\* Here’s the endnotes from _Lies…_ > [@](#): > > i. Evan Thomas is the grandson of Norman Thomas. Did you find this endnote? Congratulations. > ii. See how hard it was to find? ---
**Author:** ![CrankyAsAnOldMan](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/crankyasanoldman/32/11670_2.png) [@CrankyAsAnOldMan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/CrankyAsAnOldMan)\ **Post date:** [October 13, 2003, 1:42pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ann-coulter-v-al-franken/206789/44 "2003-10-13T13:42:34Z")
Boy, I find myself pretty disturbed about the way Ann Coulter dismisses the seriousness of her errors. The standard ought to be higher than “it’s okay if we ‘quickly correct’ an error after the first print run” or “it’s okay as long as something was a small mistake.” I would lose my job if I had that attitude, and I can tell you that I _don’t_ have an audience of millions reading my research. ---
**Author:** ![vanilla](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/v/f19dbf/32.png) [@vanilla](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/vanilla)\ **Post date:** [October 13, 2003, 2:06pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ann-coulter-v-al-franken/206789/45 "2003-10-13T14:06:05Z")
I am looking forward to the chapter titled Supply Side Jesus. 😉 ---
**Author:** ![cainxinth](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/7bcc69/32.png) [@cainxinth](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/cainxinth)\ **Post date:** [October 13, 2003, 2:53pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ann-coulter-v-al-franken/206789/46 "2003-10-13T14:53:07Z")
Normally I try to avoid making broad dismissive generalizations… but anyone who thinks Ann Coulter is less than a completely psychotic gasbag is either kidding themselves or suffering from a mental condition of considerable severity. I’ve met the woman in real life, even asked her a point blank [question](http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?s=&threadid=166617&highlight=coulter). She is a jackass and quite certainly a bullshit artist of the highest order. ---
**Author:** ![MMI](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/53a042/32.png) [@MMI](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MMI)\ **Post date:** [October 13, 2003, 4:28pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ann-coulter-v-al-franken/206789/47 "2003-10-13T16:28:36Z")
This may be a hijack, but for how many generations does socialism taint a family? Are Evan Thomas’s children also accursed by the Marx of Cain for their great grandfather’s transgressions? And their children? This is an issue of some concern to me, as I have heard that my grandmother was practically a wobbly back in the day. When she gave me fresh baked chocolate chip cookies or hosted Thanksgiving she may have been trying to push her agenda (she never made my sisters and I compete for the cookies, so perhaps she was attempting to undercut capitalism). ---
**Author:** ![Stoid](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/stoid/32/272_2.png) [@Stoid](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Stoid)\ **Post date:** [October 13, 2003, 6:30pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ann-coulter-v-al-franken/206789/48 "2003-10-13T18:30:54Z")
Franken’s book is perfectly delicious. I’d love to see some of our die-hard conservatives here read it and respond. ---
**Author:** ![Stoid](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/stoid/32/272_2.png) [@Stoid](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Stoid)\ **Post date:** [October 13, 2003, 7:04pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ann-coulter-v-al-franken/206789/49 "2003-10-13T19:04:04Z")
Okay, almost through the “Operation Ignore” chapter and I’m disgusted. Not with Franken, of course, with Bush and Co. That’s the chapter I’d like to hear from the hardcore conservatives about, not Ann Coulter. She’s just s noisy loon, she doesn’t have any impact on anything. For those not in the know, the “Operation Ignore” chapter, and the one preceding it “The Blame American’s Ex-President First Crowd” is about terrorism, as handled by Clinton and then Bush, pre-9/11, and puts the lie to all those who dare to point a finger at Clinton and say it’s his fault. ---
**Author:** ![BrainGlutton](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/82dd89/32.png) [@BrainGlutton](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BrainGlutton)\ **Post date:** [October 13, 2003, 7:12pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ann-coulter-v-al-franken/206789/50 "2003-10-13T19:12:31Z")
This has nothing to do with Franken’s honesty or Coulter’s – but **why** did Fox News think it was a good idea to sue to block publication of _Lies and the Lying Liars Who Tell Them,_ just because it was subtitled with a form of Fox’s “fair and balanced” catchphrase? Didn’t they realize they were just giving Franken free publicity? His book is now on the bestseller lists. Suck on that, Rupert! (Ermm . . . I don’t suppose Murdoch owns any stock in Penguin Group USA?) ---
**Author:** ![Captain\_Lance\_Murdoch](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/47e85d/32.png) [@Captain\_Lance\_Murdoch](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Captain_Lance_Murdoch)\ **Post date:** [October 13, 2003, 7:18pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ann-coulter-v-al-franken/206789/51 "2003-10-13T19:18:52Z")
Franken’s book reminds me of Carl Sagan’s The Demon Haunted World in the way it cuts through bullshit to get to the unvarnished truth. It’s funny too. Of course, Sagan was an agnostic so I guess he was a traitor too. ---
**Author:** ![Horatio\_Hellpop](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/e5b9ba/32.png) [@Horatio\_Hellpop](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Horatio_Hellpop)\ **Post date:** [October 13, 2003, 9:02pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ann-coulter-v-al-franken/206789/52 "2003-10-13T21:02:39Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by Stoid \* > \*\*Franken’s book is perfectly delicious. I’d love to see some of our die-hard conservatives here read it and respond. \*\* Well, I’m a conservative Democrat, let me give it a shot: It’s very entertaining, but Franken is no PJ O’Rourke. He seems to feel that lying is a party-specific behavior and of course it isn’t. And while he gets the goods on Coulter, Rove, O’Reilly, et al., this just doesn’t hold together very well as a book. The satire takes a back seat to his personal bile, to satire’s detriment. (Is harrassing the shit out of Barbara Bush really an achievement in comedy?) “Operation Chickenhawk” contributed to padding the page count more than anything else. I wish he’s just taken the strongest ten chapters and serialized them in _Rolling Stone_ or someplace. As it stands, the book just felt like something less than a full meal. I do rather admire the way he took his lumps after the Bob Jones University incident, though. ---
**Author:** ![Voodoochile](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/v/898d66/32.png) [@Voodoochile](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Voodoochile)\ **Post date:** [October 13, 2003, 9:27pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ann-coulter-v-al-franken/206789/53 "2003-10-13T21:27:20Z")
Why would anyone pay money for the books of either of these two idiots? Lies - I dont know, of all the lies listed here by both sides about the other; am I the only one that thinks theyre pretty minor and stupid?? I mean, I can see righteous indignation if someone were to say something like ‘social spending is 95% of US government spending’. Thats a ~real~ lie, with potential practical and very real consequences. But people are getting all red in the face about all this he said - she said crap? Personally I think the two should just get a damn motel room. ---
**Author:** ![Sampiro](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/2acd7d/32.png) [@Sampiro](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sampiro)\ **Post date:** [October 13, 2003, 9:30pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ann-coulter-v-al-franken/206789/54 "2003-10-13T21:30:38Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by Krokodil \* > \*\*[Franken] seems to feel that lying is a party-specific behavior and of course it isn’t. \*\* I didn’t get that point so much- I’m sure Franken is perfectly aware that there are lies and the lying liars who tell them on the left as well. However, the point of his book was to return fire at the Coulters and O’Reillys and Limbaughs who make the reverse claim (that the left is the father of lies) and not a wholesale investigation of party fanatics from all sides. I second the notion that Coulter and Moore would be a much greater contest. I also have to go on record as saying that _Marx of Cain_ should receive the SDMB Best Pun Award for this quarter and will probably be stolen by some journalist somewhere reporting on the Coulter-Franken debate. (I’d love to be there to see Coulter say :smack: “DOH!” when she learns about the endnote.) ---
**Author:** ![rjung](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/45deac/32.png) [@rjung](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/rjung)\ **Post date:** [October 14, 2003, 6:52am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ann-coulter-v-al-franken/206789/55 "2003-10-14T06:52:55Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by BrainGlutton \* > This has nothing to do with Franken’s honesty or Coulter’s – but **why** did Fox News think it was a good idea to sue to block publication of _Lies and the Lying Liars Who Tell Them,_ just because it was subtitled with a form of Fox’s “fair and balanced” catchphrase? Because like all bullies, Bill O’Reilly is a thin-skinned coward who goes ballistic when someone actually stands up to his bullstuff. Since he couldn’t just shout “Shut up!” at Franken, he did the next best thing and shoved Fox’s legal department into filing a suit. ---
**Author:** ![vanilla](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/v/f19dbf/32.png) [@vanilla](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/vanilla)\ **Post date:** [October 14, 2003, 2:09pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ann-coulter-v-al-franken/206789/56 "2003-10-14T14:09:21Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by Voodoochile \* > \*\* > > Lies - I dont know, of all the lies listed here by both sides about the other; am I the only one that thinks theyre pretty minor and stupid?? > > I mean, I can see righteous indignation if someone were to say something like ‘social spending is 95% of US government spending’. Thats a ~real~ lie, with potential practical and very real consequences. \*\* Maybe you should read it. Especially Operation Ignore, where the Clinton government got together a whole comprehensive anti-terrorism deal, and a Clarke (is it?) sent over a request to Ashcroft for some money to get together all the security peoples. On Sept. 10th,2001, Ashcroft refused it. ---
**Author:** ![JThunder](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/e95f7d/32.png) [@JThunder](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/JThunder)\ **Post date:** [October 14, 2003, 3:30pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ann-coulter-v-al-franken/206789/57 "2003-10-14T15:30:55Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by BrainGlutton \* > \*\*This has nothing to do with Franken’s honesty or Coulter’s – but **why** did Fox News think it was a good idea to sue to block publication of _Lies and the Lying Liars Who Tell Them,_ just because it was subtitled with a form of Fox’s “fair and balanced” catchphrase? Didn’t they realize they were just giving Franken free publicity? \*\* Well, if they were motivated by a desire to squelch Franken’s point of view, that was indeed a poor tactic. However, if they were indeed motivated by a desire to protect their alleged trademark, then the question of free publicity is irrelevant. ---
**Author:** ![Captain\_Lance\_Murdoch](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/47e85d/32.png) [@Captain\_Lance\_Murdoch](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Captain_Lance_Murdoch)\ **Post date:** [October 14, 2003, 5:35pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ann-coulter-v-al-franken/206789/58 "2003-10-14T17:35:53Z")
A few posters have described the book as being a parody. It’s not a parody. It’s condemnation of dishonesty in right-wing politics. There are small bits of parody in it (the send-up of O’Reilly’s novel is great), but the book is not a parody. ---
**Author:** ![Mr.Evil\_Breakfast](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/b4bc9f/32.png) [@Mr.Evil\_Breakfast](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mr.Evil_Breakfast)\ **Post date:** [October 14, 2003, 11:38pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ann-coulter-v-al-franken/206789/59 "2003-10-14T23:38:32Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by BrainGlutton \* > \*\* His book is now on the bestseller lists. \*\* The book would have been on the bestseller lists regardless of Franken’s having been sued. He has enough name recognition now as an author that he automatically gets a certain number of copies printed, which guarantees a spot on the bestseller list. **Captain Murdoch** , you make an interesting point, which leads me to ask theis question. If the book isn’t considered a parody, then would O’Reilly be right in suing Franken for defamation of character? ---
**Author:** ![BrainGlutton](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/82dd89/32.png) [@BrainGlutton](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BrainGlutton)\ **Post date:** [October 15, 2003, 1:23am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ann-coulter-v-al-franken/206789/60 "2003-10-15T01:23:07Z")
Posted by **Mr. Evil Breakfast:** > [@](#): > > If the book isn’t considered a parody, then would O’Reilly be right in suing Franken for defamation of character? From what I can see, there are no conceivable circumstances in which O’Reilly would be right in suing anybody for defamation of character. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ann-coulter-v-al-franken/206789.md?page=2) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ann-coulter-v-al-franken/206789.md?page=4)