The Nigh Seen Creeder

Two weeks ago, David Limbaugh's Bankrupt: The Intellectual and Moral Bankruptcy of Today's Democratic Party was a permanent fixture on my away-from-home desk. Spying this book, one of my co-workers suggested that I should purchase one of Al Franken's death-to-Republicans scribblings, Lies and the Lying Liars Who Tell Them: A Fair and Balanced Look at the Right in particular. "If I decide to read that book, I'll get if from the library," says I. "I've no intention of padding Mr. Franken's coffers by purchasing one of his ridiculous screeds."

As verbose as I am, I couldn't allow that to be my final statement. I vigorously flipped through the final pages of Mr. Limbaugh's book and said this to my co-worker: "Notice how many pages of detailed notes are included in this book? I doubt Al Franken's book will have a list of his sources." (For the record, Limbaugh's book features 56 pages of notes.)

Knowing Al Franken's history as I do, I wasn't surprised when I found the following tidbit in a September 1, 2003, New York Times review of Lies and the Lying Liars ... :

"Mr. Franken ... fuels his arguments by barely annotating much of this book's data and skipping a closing index entirely."

You'd think that a person who has the balls to brand others as "idiots" and "liars" would at least back up his assertions with detailed notes. You'd think, but we are talking about Al Franken here.

That said, Franken has routinely employed Harvard-educated "experts" to help him conduct research for his books. A dozen or so such experts were toiling for Franken prior to the publication of Lies and the Lying Liars. Team Franken failed to produce a single page of annotated comments for said book.

If I were Al Franken, methinks I'd be asking for my money back. Indeed.