margomargo's Full Review: Al Franken - Rush Limbaugh Is a Big Fat Idiot: And...
Al Franken begins his hilarious book, "Rush Limbaugh is a Big Fat Idiot", with a reprint of a New York Times Book Review of "RLIABFI" written by, ready for this? Jeanne Kirkpatrick. Wha ...? She writes: "It remains a mystery why the New York Times would ask me to review this dreadfully foul little book."
This is followed by a letter to the editor of the Times, in which Al Franken takes the Times to task for assigning Kirkpatrick to do the review. He states that he had always understood that the Times, in order to protect objectivity, had a firm policy against assigning an author's former lover to review his book.
Finally comes a heated denial from Ambassador Kirkpatrick, in which she states, "I don't know what this horrible, horrible man is talking about."
And with that, we're launched into what has to be the best, and funniest, piece of political satire since Will Rogers was cranking em out. This book is loaded with laughs:
...we didn't move to Minnesota until 1955, when I was four. For those of you in the Michigan Militia, that means I was born in 1951.
...I noticed fairly early in life that some people LIVE to find stuff to be indignant about. And it's pretty unattractive. That's why I decided to become a wiseass.
... I was excited to see Ron Nessen. Now there's a sentence you don't read everyday.
...Lyn Nofziger was waiting for me. Nofziger was a bulldog of a guy with the kind of a goatee that if he was Jewish and in a little worse shape, you might think he was a pornographer.
... two images come to mind. The first is of the grasslands of Africa. During the Neolithic Period. Rush, Newt, and Bill Bennett, all 825 pounds of them, are trying to run down a giraffe. The giraffe is thinking, "No problem here."
...Frankly, I'm getting a little sick of cranky Republicans who can't keep their own families together telling everybody else about family values. Quick. What do Newt Gingrich, Bob Dole, Phil Gramm, and George Will have in common? Answer. They've all been married only one less time than Rush Limbaugh.
...I want you to know that I admire everyone I'll be making fun of in the book. Except Pat Robertson. He's a lunatic. And I really don't like Limbaugh. And Pat Buchanan, let's face it, is a racist. Ralph Reed, I have no use for. And Gingrich just plain scares me.
...if you get beyond the fact that Phil Gramm is ugly, mean, hypocritical, mammario-fetishistic, and drives his wife like a mule, he does have a certain folksy charm.
Topics covered in the book include:
Rush Limbaugh is a Big Fat Idiot
Limbaugh and Women - a Pathetic Story
The Budget Crisis
Gingrich: Sex, Giraffes, and Weightlessness
Affirmative Action
Didiots - Limbaugh's Legion of Fans
Gun Control
Apocryphal Anecdotes: The Republican Contribution to Public Debate
Rush Limbaugh - Big Fat Hypocrite
Renaissance Weekend
Politicians Who Have Showered With Blacks (Bradley, Bunning, Kemp,
Largent, Watts)
There are cartoons, fantasy anecdotes, lists, recommendations - there are even numerous charts and graphs. Like the one which chronicles Limbaugh's ballooning poundage.
There are numerous "insider's view" type reports of events like campaign stops, conventions, and press conferences; Renaissance Weekend; and various Washington Press Corps functions.
And there is much, much more, including some pretty funny sections in which Al Franken takes some pretty harsh shots at himself.
It's also loaded with a lot of good, solid, well-researched balloon-pricking, beginning with Rush Limbaugh, and when he's reduced to a big, fat piece of Swiss cheese, moving on to other conservative gas bags like Pat Robertson, Patrick Buchanan, Newt Gingrich, Phil Gramm, Bob Dornan, and Oliver North, to name a few.
Franken discusses a little bit about the family values of each of these "family values" specialists, and then he takes a very close, very humorous look at the way these Machiavellian bozos have manipulated a sizable percentage of the American people over the past decade or two.
This book really surprised me! I expected it to be funny, and it is. I expected it to be outrageous, and it is. What I didn't expect was that, in his very humorous and irreverent way, Al Franken was going to give a pretty darn good assessment of most of the major political issues of our time, complete with solid research and documentation.
If you're a Rush Limbaugh fan, just go ahead and shoot me the big NR. If you like highly intelligent, no-holds-barred political satire, buy this book. I highly recommend it.
Move over P.J. O Rourke! From Al Franken, America s premier liberal satirist, comes a hilarious homage to the wonderful, awful, and always absurd Amer...More at Buy.com Marketplaces
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