I watch the Daily Show semi-regularly, so I thought I was used to hearing the Republicans being slammed, but whoa baby. I’ve come out of reading The Truth with a greater disdain for the current U.S. administration than before. I realize that Franken’s probably taking some liberties, but if even half of what he says is true (and it feels right), these are some nasty nasty people. In addition, even if the book were all lies, it’d be worth reading just for the funny. He really knows how to hit my buttons – I enjoyed the way the book was written even more than the content. A sample:

In books like this one, too often cases are made on the basis of anecdotes and generalities. For example, in Bernard Goldberg’s biased Bias, the author relies on a story about a colleague calling Gary Baure “a little nut from the Christian group” as proof of a media-wide anti-Christian, anti-short people, anti-nut conspiracy. See? I started this paragraph with a generality and tried to prove it with an anecdote. That kind of sloppiness doesn’t cut it here.

Self-reference and a warning against attempting to prove things via anecdote. That either does it for you, or it doesn’t. It does it for me.