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Al Franken was never very funny.   At some point he got pissed off that no one was laughing and that's probably why he became a mean, arrogant, liar.   He has become a pretty large mouth piece for the liberal left.  These are some blatant lies from two of his books.  The information below is from FrankenLies.com a website I encourage all of you to visit.  FrankenLies.com is reputable site that has been cited by writers and historians.  It has never been debunked (though many have tried).  I have no affiliation with FrankenLies.com and I have never even spoken to its creator.  

Franken Lies About WMD

Claim: Bush Didn't Fund No Child Left Behind

Lying To Help Kerry

Franken Is Left Behind

Swiftboat BS

A Franken Lie

Bush Lied?

Misleading Minneapolis

Franken And The Pope

Audiotape Doesn't Lie

Lying For The Clintons To Cover Vandalism

O'Reilly Levittown Issue

How Many Researchers Does It Take To Read The Washington  Post?

Franken Needs Some History Classes

90 or 700?

Fact Checking

Franken Accused Of Plagiarism

 

Let’s start with an easy one.

    On page 225 of Truth, in writing about the lead-up to the Iraq war, Franken asserts that in 1998 (emphasis mine),

"[President Clinton] launched a series of bomb strikes, which, as Bush’s handpicked weapons inspectors would later confirm in the Duelfer Report, knocked out all that remained of Saddam’s atrophied WMD capacity. The threat to America was obliterated once and for all, even though Saddam was still in place."

    The truth? The Duelfer Report says no such thing.¹ There’s not even a hint of anything like Franken’s claim in the report. Franken’s assertion is simply baseless and false.

    The entire Duelfer Report is over one thousand pages long. Apparently, Franken was hoping that readers wouldn’t actually take the time to study it for themselves and find out the truth on their own.²

 

    [ADDENDUM: Franken repeated this bogus claim on the December 7, 2005, episode of Scarborough Country on MSNBC (link).]

Franken's claim that President Bush "didn't fund" No Child Left Behind (NCLB) has been debunked; but Franken then continues about NCLB (on page 93, emphasis mine):

"As a result, class sizes went up, after-school programs were dropped, teachers were fired, and children were left behind."

    In the "Notes and Sources" section at the back of his book, Franken does not provide even one source to support this statement. (And we know how important "research" is to him.) What evidence does Franken have to make such a claim? Does he have anything? Who knows.

    More importantly: Franken has a lot of nerve to spout about after-school programs being dropped in light of the scandalous $875,000 loan that the former owners of Air America Radio, his radio outlet, secured from the Gloria Wise Boys & Girls Club, a benevolent organization that has served underprivileged youth in Bronx, New York. The egregious and greedy behavior of Air America may have led to this caring club going "belly up"!¹

    There is A LOT to this shocking scandal, much more that can be covered here. Readers who are not familiar with this story are strongly encouraged to turn to Brian Maloney and Michelle Malkin, who did some sensational research on this stupefying story. Some of their fantastic work can be found here and here. Do yourself a favor: Check it out. It's unbelievable. (Yes, Al Franken himself is personally involved!)

    Can anyone say, "Hypocrisy"?

 

___________________

Notes:

1  Al used this phrase on the August 8, 2005, episode of his radio show. (The club's reported web site, www.gloriawise.org, is no longer viewable. This site features two phone numbers, one of which is disconnected. The other number's answering machine makes no reference to Gloria Wise.)

In Al Franken's adventurous attempt to defend John Kerry against charges of being a flip-flopper, Franken defends Kerry's position on the No Child Left Behind Act (NCLB), President Bush's 2001 education initiative (signed into law in 2002). On page 93, Franken claims (bold added),

"Kerry voted for the bill, which the President promised to fund. The President didn't fund it, which created unfunded mandates on states and school district across the country."

    "The President didn't fund it"? Yikes! Where are 14 Harvard researchers when you need them?

    The truth, supported in part by Franken's friends at factcheck.org, is that federal education spending under President Bush has increased by a whopping 58 percent!¹

   

    President Bush "didn't fund" NCLB? Sorry, Al. Do you like graphs? Here's the funding of NCLB, from the U.S. Department of Education web site:

 

    Franken's claim is 100% false.

 

___________________

Notes:

1  See "Democratic Internet Ad Confuses Fiction and Fact" at http://www.factcheck.org/article162.html. Please also see: "Democrat Leadership Budget Doesn't 'Fully Fund' No Child Left Behind" at http://www.house.gov/ed_workforce/issues/108th/education/nclb/factsheet032504.htm.

2  This graph is found at Factcheck.org: "Democratic Internet Ad Confuses Fiction and Fact" at http://www.factcheck.org/article162.html.

3  This graph is among several informative graphs at the Department of Education's website: http://www.ed.gov/about/overview/fed/10facts/edlite-chart.html#6.

In his muddled attempt to defend John Kerry from the claims of the Swift Boat Veterans for Truth (SBVT), on pages 73, 74, and 75 of Truth, Franken makes the false and reckless charge that SBVTs "weren’t there" or "weren’t actually there."

    Franken is flat-out wrong - again. Here is another classic case in which he hopes that the reader doesn’t do his own research.

    Steve Gardner, of SBVT, served on the same boat as John Kerry for two-and-a-half months of Kerry’s four-month stint in Vietnam¹. William Schachte, also of SBVT, served on the same boat with Kerry in an event from which Kerry claimed his first Purple Heart. (Schachte claims, "There was no enemy fire" and "Kerry nicked himself with a grenade launcher."²)

    In addition, Charles Plumly, Larry Thurlow, Van Odell, Grant Hibbard, Larry Lee (present at the Silver Star incident), Dick Pease, and Jack Chenoweth are among several individuals who witnessed John Kerry in various capacities during different episodes and events in Vietnam in which Kerry was involved.

    SBVT’s "weren’t there," Al? Ugh.

    Where are 14 Harvard researchers when you need them?

 

^{____________________}

Notes:

1  See some very informative videos: http://www.swiftvets.com/swiftvetsandpows/ and www.swiftvets.com/videos/gunner.wmv.

2  “Swift boat interview,” by Robert Novak, Aug 27, 2004. http://www.townhall.com/opinion/columns/robertnovak/2004/08/27/12817.html.

 

On pages 69 to 81 of Truth, Franken undertakes a disjointed and scatterbrained attempt to defend John Kerry’s record against the claims of the Swift Boat Veterans for Truth (SBVT). Towards the beginning of his digressive and waffling passage, Franken writes, on page 73,

"[T]he mainstream press debunk[ed] each and every charge made by John O’Neill and his swarm of lying vermin (the Swift Boat Veterans)."

    Only in Franken’s dreams is this the case.

    "Each and every charge"? Sorry, Al.

    Among the many assertions from the SBVT that Kerry defenders failed to discredit (or they simply ignored) are the following:

1. John Kerry claimed he was on a mission in Cambodia on Christmas Eve and Christmas Day of 1968. In fact, Kerry said on the Senate floor in 1986 that the incident had been "seared" into his memory.
*** Eventually, Kerry’s own campaign had to admit that this tale was simply untrue.¹

2. In a journal entry dated December 11, 1968, Kerry wrote, "[w]e hadn’t been shot at yet" since arriving in Vietnam. But nine days earlier, on December 2, 1968, Kerry solicited his first Purple Heart, claiming he suffered an injury from enemy fire. This is clearly a problematic contradiction.
*** On August 24, 2004, it was reported, "Kerry’s campaign has said it is possible his first Purple Heart was awarded for an unintentionally self-inflicted wound."²

3. In the Tour of Duty biography, by Douglas Brinkley, Kerry tells the story of how on the morning of March 13, 1969, he "got a piece of small grenade in my @ss" (page 313). Kerry relates how the grenade set off as he was standing too close to a bin of rice that he was trying to destroy. Mysteriously, later that same day, Kerry claimed his third Purple Heart, citing a wound suffered in the exact same place on his fanny. He claims it came from an underwater mine.³

4. John Kerry, as a member of the Naval Reserves, met with the enemy in Paris in 1970 and 1971.
*** In March of 2005, Marty Meehan, one of Kerry's spokespersons, acknowledged Kerry did actually meet with Madame Binh, the foreign minister for the Provisional Revolutionary Government (PRG/the "Viet Cong") in Paris.⁴

5. At an April 23, 1971, anti-war demonstration, Kerry was seen tossing medals over a fence at the U.S. Capitol. In a Nov. 6, 1971, television interview on WRC's "Viewpoints," Kerry said, “[T]he medals themselves ... I gave back, I can’t remember, six, seven, eight, nine.” Over the years, however, Kerry's story has changed so many times, it's hard to keep track. Medals? Ribbons? Wha--? For some help on this, see "One Fence, Nine Medals, Four Kerrys," by Ingrid Langsather, at http://www.humaneventsonline.com/article.php?id=3760.

6. John Kerry claimed on the Dick Cavett Show in 1971 that he "deliberated for about two weeks" in deciding whether to return to the States after his four months in Vietnam. Kerry’s last "wound" was on March 13, 1969, but by March 17, 1969, at 7:42 am, his request for reassignment in the United States had already arrived in Washington. "Two weeks"?? Uh-uh.⁵

 

 

ADDENDUM

    Franken’s false and desperate attack of the SBVT only indicates that Franken is still smarting from his Friday February 18, 2005, appearance on the Michael Medved radio show. On that show, Franken had the lucky opportunity to debate John O’Neill, the leader of SBVT, and the co-author of Unfit for Command.

    Were listeners treated to a point-by-point rebuttal by Franken of "each and every charge" by SBVT? No. Not at all. Instead, Franken claimed he was "ambushed."⁶ He "went ape," wrote one observer.⁷ At one point, rather than questioning O’Neill, Franken questioned the host Medved if he had been in the military. Geesh.

    Another eyewitness reported,

"During the microphone check, Al Franken was cursing Michael, calling veteran John O'Neill a disgrace... He didn't think anyone in radio land would hear I suppose, but forgot that the blogger was in the studio ... Franken even threw down his headphones before the show began, and Michael reasoned with him and persuaded him to sit down again. Within 30 seconds we came on the air ... After Franken threw down his chair and stomped off pouting, Michael continued talking with Swift Vet John O’Neill ..."⁸

    Ouch!

 

^{____________________}

Notes:

1  John E. O'Neill and Jerome R. Corsi, PhD. Unfit for Command (Washington, D.C.: Regnery, 2004, 2005), p. 46. Also: “Kerry's Latest Flip-Flop, Cambodia -- Did He Lie to the U.S. Senate?” Human Events, posted Aug 11, 2004. http://www.humaneventsonline.com/article.php?id=4771.

2  Unfit for Command, Epilogue, pp. 6-7. Also: “John Kerry’s First Purple Heart” (video), accessed November 2005 from http://www.swiftvets.com/swiftvetsandpows/.

3  Unfit for Command, p. 89.

4  Unfit for Command, Epilogue, p. 22.

5  Unfit for Command, p. 94.

6  There is some video with some (low) audio at http://www.thenationaldebate.com/video/FrankenRage01.wmv.

7  http://www.thenationaldebate.com/blog/archives/2005/02/franken_explode_3.html

8  http://medvedfans.blog-city.com/cpac_part_ii.htm

 

    In chapter 3, Franken baselessly contends that President Bush could have done something that may have prevented the attacks on September 11. To forward his position, it appears Franken has simply resorted to making things up.

    On page 41, Franken writes,

"If the Director of Central Intelligence tells you 'the system is blinking red,' ask him what he’d like you to do about it."

    Quite simply, there is no record that CIA Director George Tenet ever said any such thing to the President. The "blinking red" reference comes from a statement that Tenet made to the 9/11 Commission in 2004 in reference to the intelligence world in the summer of 2001.¹

Hey, Al. You're wrong again, and your facts are "blinking red."

 

___________________

 

Notes:

1  Read the relevant passage at: http://www.9-11commission.gov/report/911Report_Ch8.pdf. ("Tenet told us that in his world 'the system was blinking red.' By late July, Tenet said, it could not 'get any worse.' Not everyone was convinced. Some asked whether all these threats might just be deception.")

   Maybe I was naive to think that Al Franken was not dense enough to cling himself to the "Bush lied" canard. But there it is on page 99 of Truth:

"Bush lied us into war."

    One word: Ugh.

    In his last book, Lies and the Lying Who Tell Them, Franken wrote, "[L]ying is when you intentionally deceive" (bold added: p. 354, hardcover; p. 363, paperback).

    You’d think if you were going to level the serious charge that The President of the United States intentionally deceived the world, you would be able to buttress it with some solid facts, not just empty rhetoric.

    Here’s a question for Al and his cronies: Did the following people "lie" also?

PRESIDENT BILL CLINTON: "[M]ark my words, [Saddam Hussein] will develop weapons of mass destruction. He will deploy them, and he will use them." (Remarks At The White House, 12/16/98)¹

PRESIDENT BILL CLINTON: "In the next century, the community of nations may see more and more of the very kind of threat Iraq poses now – a rogue state with weapons of mass destruction, ready to use them or provide them to terrorists, drug traffickers, or organized criminals who travel the world among us unnoticed. If we fail to respond today, Saddam, and all those who would follow in his footsteps, will be emboldened tomorrow by the knowledge that they can act with impunity, even in the face of a clear message from the United Nations Security Council, and clear evidence of a weapons of mass destruction program." (Remarks At The Pentagon, 2/17/98)

PRESIDENT BILL CLINTON: "[L]et’s imagine the future. What if he fails to comply and we fail to act, or we take some ambiguous third route, which gives him yet more opportunities to develop this program of weapons of mass destruction and continue to press for the release of the sanctions and continue to ignore the solemn commitments that he made? Well, he will conclude that the international community has lost its will. He will then conclude that he can go right on and do more to rebuild an arsenal of devastating destruction. And some day, some way, I guarantee you he’ll use the arsenal. And I think every one of you who has really worked on this for any length of time, believes that, too." (Remarks At The Pentagon, 2/17/98)

PRESIDENT BILL CLINTON: "We have to defend our future from these predators of the 21st century. … [T]hey will be all the more lethal if we allow them to build arsenals of nuclear, chemical and biological weapons and the missiles to deliver them. We simply cannot allow that to happen. There is no more clear example of this threat than Saddam Hussein’s Iraq. His regime threatens the safety of his people, the stability of his region and the security of all the rest of us." (Remarks At The Pentagon, 2/17/98)

MADELEINE ALBRIGHT, SECRETARY OF STATE, CLINTON ADMINISTRATION: "Iraq is a long way from Ohio, but what happens there matters a great deal here. For the risk that the leaders of a rogue state will use nuclear, chemical or biological weapons against us or our allies is the greatest security threat we face. And it is a threat against which we must and will stand firm. In discussing Iraq, we begin by knowing that Saddam Hussein, unlike any other leader, has used weapons of mass destruction even against his own people." (CNN’s "Showdown With Iraq: International Town Meeting," 2/18/98)

SANDY BERGER, NATIONAL SECURITY ADVISER, CLINTON ADMINISTRATION: "Some have suggested that we should basically turn away. We should close our eyes to this effort to create a safe haven for weapons of mass destruction. But imagine the consequences if Saddam fails to comply and we fail to act. Saddam will be emboldened believing the international community has lost its will. He will rebuild his arsenal of weapons of mass destruction, and someday, some way, I am certain, he will use that arsenal again as he has 10 times since 1983." (CNN’s "Showdown With Iraq: International Town Meeting," 2/18/98)

SEN. JOHN KERRY (D-MA): "Saddam Hussein has already used these weapons and has made it clear that he has the intent to continue to try, by virtue of his duplicity and secrecy, to continue to do so. … It is a threat with respect to the potential of terrorist activities on a global basis." (Press Conference, 2/23/98)

SEN. JOHN KERRY (D-MA): "If you don't believe ... Saddam Hussein is a threat with nuclear weapons, then you shouldn't vote for me." (Ronald Brownstein, "On Iraq, Kerry Appears Either Torn Or Shrewd," Los Angeles Times, 1/31/03)²

SEN. JAY ROCKEFELLER (D-WV): "I do believe that Iraq poses an imminent threat, but I also believe that after September 11th that question is increasingly outdated." (Congressional Record, 10/10/02)

SEN. JAY ROCKEFELLER (D-WV): "Saddam’s existing biological and chemical weapons capabilities pose real threats to America today, tomorrow. … [He] is working to develop delivery systems like missiles and unmanned aerial vehicles that could bring these deadly weapons against U.S. forces and U.S. facilities in the Middle East. He could make these weapons available to many terrorist groups, third parties, which have contact with his government. Those groups, in turn, could bring those weapons into the United States and unleash a devastating attack against our citizens. I fear that greatly." (Congressional Record, 10/10/02)

SEN. HILLARY CLINTON (D-NY): "In the four years since the inspectors, intelligence reports show that Saddam Hussein has worked to rebuild his chemical and biological weapons stock, his missile delivery capability, and his nuclear program. … It is clear, however, that if left unchecked, Saddam Hussein will continue to increase his capability to wage biological and chemical warfare and will keep trying to develop nuclear weapons." (Congressional Record, 10/10/02)

Tim Russert: "Do you believe we could have disarmament without regime change?"
SEN. HILLARY CLINTON (D-NY): "I doubt it ... I can support the President. I can support an action against Saddam Hussein because I think it’s in the long-term interest of our national security." (NBC, "Meet the Press," 9/15/02)

REP. NANCY PELOSI (D-CA): "Saddam Hussein certainly has chemical and biological weapons. There’s no question about that." (NBC, "Meet the Press," 11/17/02)

SEN. CHARLES SCHUMER (D-NY): "[It] is Hussein’s vigorous pursuit of biological, chemical and nuclear weapons, and his present and 10 potential future support for terrorist acts and organizations, that make him a terrible danger to the people to the United States." (Congressional Record, 10/10/02)

HOWARD DEAN, CURRENT DNC CHAIR, FORMER GOVERNOR OF VERMONT: "There are such a thing as international outlaws. I’m not sure if China is one, but I’m quite sure Iran and Iraq are." (CBC/PBS, "The Editors," 1/31/98)

SEN. TOM DASCHLE (FORMER D-SD): "Iraq is not the only nation in the world to possess weapons of mass destruction, but it is the only nation with a leader who has used them against his own people. It is essential that a dictator like Saddam not be allowed to evade international strictures and wield frightening weapons of mass destruction." (Congressional Record, 2/12/98)

SEN. HARRY REID (D-NV): "We had to attack. [President Clinton] had to do what his military advisors told him he should do ... Now is not the time for second-guessing or partisan finger-pointing. National security concerns must come first ... [Saddam Hussein] is too dangerous of a man to be given carte blanche with weapons of mass destruction." (From Brendan Riley, "Nevada Leaders React To Iraq Bombing," Associated Press, 12/26/98)³

SEN. JOHN EDWARDS (FORMER D-NC): "Serving on the Intelligence Committee and seeing day after day, week after week, briefings on Saddam's weapons of mass destruction and his plans on using those weapons, he cannot be allowed to have nuclear weapons, it's just that simple. The whole world changes if Saddam ever has nuclear weapons." (MSNBC, "Buchanan And Press," 1/7/03)⁴

SEN. PATRICK LEAHY (D-VT): "I have no doubt Saddam Hussein is lying. He has lied countless times before. He is likely hiding weapons, including chemical and biological weapons. The U.N. Inspectors' Report leaves little doubt of that." (Congressional Record, 1/30/03, p. S1782)⁵

 

    Are we to suppose that only President Bush "lied"? Geesh. I’m longing for the days of Franken’s "impossibly high standard."

 

    [ADDENDUM: Here's are two must-read articles that also debunk the "Bush lied" canard: "Spies, Lies, and Weapons: What Went Wrong," by Kenneth Pollack (Atlantic Monthly, January/February 2004) and "Who Is Lying About Iraq?" by Norman Podhoretz (Opinion Journal, November 2005).]

 

^{____________________}

Notes:

1  "Transcript: President Clinton explains Iraq strike" CNN.com, December 16, 1998. http://www.cnn.com/ALLPOLITICS/stories/1998/12/16/transcripts/clinton.html 

2  A devastating compilation of past remarks by Democrats is logged "Dem WMD Short Term Memory," November 2, 2005, at http://www.gop.com/News/Read.aspx?ID=5899.

3  "Iraq & Weapons of Mass Destruction: What the Democrats Said and When They Said It," at http://frist.senate.gov/_files/111505.pdf.

4  "Dem WMD Short Term Memory," November 2, 2005, at http://www.gop.com/News/Read.aspx?ID=5899.

5  "Dem WMD Hypocrisy: Dems Now Attacking Bush Administration On Iraq War Are Same Dems Who Declared Iraq Had WMDs," at http://www.gop.com/News/Read.aspx?ID=5912.

 

On page 40 of The Truth, Franken writes,

"Could 9/11 have been prevented? We'll never really know ... Washington might have found out about ... the FBI agent who tried to warn HQ that Zacarias Moussaoui might 'take control of a plane and fly it into the World Trade Center'."

    Franken implements some crafty semantics and quotation marks to leave his readers with the false impression that a Minneapolis FBI agent warned about a possible attack on the World Trade Center.

    The truth is that the agent's remark reflected his grave concern that Moussaoui was a potential danger. Instead of "the World Trade Center," the agent could easily have said "The Washington Monument" or "Los Angeles airport." Quite simply, the agent had no foreknowledge of any impending attack.¹ In addition, there is substantial evidence that even many of the hijackers were unaware of their actual mission on September 11.²   

    Franken has misled his readers.

 

____________________

Notes:

1  The Report of the Joint Inquiry Into the Terrorist Attacks of September 11, 2001 – By the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence and the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence, released in full to the public in July 2003, addressed this episode (emphasis added):

"On August 27 [2001], the RFU [Radical Fundamentalist Unit] agent told the Minneapolis supervisor that the supervisor was getting people 'spun up' over Moussaoui. According to his notes and his statement to the Joint Inquiry, the supervisor replied that he was trying to get people at FBI Headquarters 'spun up' because he was trying to make sure that Moussaoui 'did not take control of a plane and fly it into the World Trade Center.' The Minneapolis agent said that the Headquarters agent told him:

[T]hat’s not going to happen. We don’t know he’s a terrorist. You don’t have enough to show he is a terrorist. You have a guy interested in this type of aircraft – that is it.

"[On August 28, the RFU agent edited, and returned to Minneapolis for comment, the request for a FISA Court order that Minneapolis had prepared. The RFU agent told the Joint Inquiry that it was not unusual for FBI Headquarters agents to make changes to field submissions. The major substantive change was removal of information that tried to make connections between the Chechen rebels and al-Qa’ida. After the edit was complete, the RFU agent briefed the FBI Deputy General Counsel, who told the Joint Inquiry that he agreed with the agent that there was insufficient information to show that Moussaoui was an agent of a foreign power]."

    There is quite a difference is someone expressing a concern ("trying to make sure") and issuing a warning ("[trying] to warn").

    See pages 322-323 at http://www.gpoaccess.gov/serialset/creports/pdf/part3.pdf.

2  For more on this, see the recommended book: Richard Miniter, Disinformation: 22 Media Myths That Undermine the War on Terror (Washington D.C.: Regnery, 2005), pp. 50-51.

Is Al Franken so determined to defend President Clinton’s record on terrorism that he has to make things up? What about those 14 Harvard researchers? On pages 109-110 (paperback, pp. 117-118) of Lies, Franken writes

• "Ramzi Yousef, Abdul Hakim Murad, and Wali Khan Amin Shah are all currently behind bars ... They were involved in [further] plots to kill the Pope and blow up twelve U.S. jetliners simultaneously. But neither happened. ... Why? Because Clinton thwarted them. He thwarted them all."

    The truth? The plot to kill the Pope was thwarted by Philippine officials in January 1995, less than one week before the pontiff’s arrival in Manila!¹² Abdul Murad was captured after he and Yousef accidentally started a fire in their apartment while trying to mix explosives. Upon interrogation, Murad confessed to the plot to kill the Pope.

    Murad also confessed the details of a plan called Bojinka, the plot to blow up a dozen U.S. airliners.³

    When Murad was handed over to the F.B.I. months later, the work (and heroics) had already been done ... by Philippine law enforcement!⁴

    The truth is that Bill Clinton had as much to do with thwarting these plots as much as, well, as much as Al Franken did.

    How many Harvard researchers was that again?

__________________

Notes:

1  Peter Lance, 1000 Years for Revenge: International Terrorism and the FBI, The Untold Story (New York: Regan Books, 2003), timeline pp. 14-15, pp. 266-269, p. 274.
[See also Richard Miniter, Losing Bin Laden: How Bill Clinton’s Failures Unleashed Global Terror (Regenery, 2003), pp. 80-81 and ...
Gerald Posner, Why America Slept: The Failure to Prevent 9/11 (Random House, 2003), pp. 78-79.]

2  Miniter, Losing Bin Laden, p. 80.
[Also Lance, 1000 Years ..., timeline p. 15, p. 274.]

3  Lance, 1000 Years ..., pp. 274-277, p. 342, timeline p. 15.

4  In addition, the Report of the Joint Inquiry Into the Terrorist Attacks of September 11, 2001 – By the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence and the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence, released in full to the public in July 2003, states (emphasis mine),

"In 1995, Yousef’s plots to bomb twelve U.S. airplanes flying Asian routes, kill the Pope, and crash a plane into CIA Headquarters were thwarted by Philippine police when a fire erupted in an apartment where Yousef was preparing explosives." (page 310) http://www.gpoaccess.gov/serialset/creports/pdf/part3.pdf

On page 117 (p. 121 in the paperback) of Lies, Franken takes issue with the following claim from Sean Hannity:

"Bill Clinton ... [was] offered Osama bin Laden by the Sudanese government, and they turned the offer down. They could have taken him into custody and begun unraveling his terrorist network 6 years ago [1996]. But they didn’t."

(Sean Hannity, Let Freedom Ring (New York: Regan Books, 2002))

    The issue: Did the U.S. at least have the option to take Osama bin Laden into custody in 1996, as Sean Hannity has written?

    Franken points to a couple of former Clinton officials who question this claim.¹ In effect, Franken utilizes these officials to discredit Hannity and refute the notion that there was ever such an option.

    However, Franken’s entire passage rings hollow to those with the knowledge of a recorded statement from someone who should really know the truth of the matter: former President Bill Clinton. At a February 2002 business luncheon in New York, Clinton said this:

"Mr. Bin Laden used to live in Sudan ... And we’d been hearing that the Sudanese wanted America to start meeting with them again. They released him. At the time, '96, he had committed no crime against America so I did not bring him here because we had no basis on which to hold him, though we knew he wanted to commit crimes against America."²

    Sean Hannity is right-on! Don’t believe it? Newsmax has the exclusive audiotape. Listen to it here.

    It has also been reported that Clinton has confided that this failure "was the greatest mistake of my presidency."³

    Franken’s passage is particularly sad because he tarnishes a decent, well-intentioned citizen, a Pakistani-American named Mansoor Ijaz, the man who is credited with brokering the U.S.-Sudan deal. A successful businessman and diplomat,⁴ he is a testament to the American Dream. But Ijaz is also on a special mission to fulfill his father’s dying wish to save his father’s country (Pakistan) and the world from radical extremists and terrorists.⁵ Here is a man who really loves America. Are you reading this, Al?

    Oh, yeah. The Clinton tape became public in August 2002, one year before Franken’s book was released. Did TeamFranken not know about the tape? Or did Clinton’s words fail to meet Franken’s "impossibly high standard"?

 

[Additional Note: In 2004, a former CIA officer in charge of operations against Al Qaeda from Washington, Michael Scheuer, revealed that,

"[B]etween January 1996 and June 1999 ...  I speak with firsthand experience (and for several score of CIA officers) when I state categorically that during this time senior White House officials repeatedly refused to act on sound intelligence that provided multiple chances to eliminate Osama bin Laden - either by capture or by U.S. military attack. I witnessed and documented, along with dozens of other CIA officers, instances where life-risking intelligence-gathering work of the agency's men and women in the field was wasted." (emphasis mine)

Read his article, originally published in the Los Angeles Times on Sunday December 5, 2004: http://www.truthout.org/docs_04/printer_120604E.shtml. Who was President between 1996 and 1999? You got it: Bill Clinton. Scheuer's experience was also formulated in a bestselling book, Imperial Hubris.]

__________________

Notes:

1   For more on this see “Skeptical About Sudan” by Sandy Berger, from the Saturday July 13, 2002, edition of the Washington Post. See also pages 462-463 “Notes” of The Age of Sacred Terror by Daniel Benjamin and Steven Simon (New York: Random House, 2002). Warning: readers of these pieces might become “skeptical” of their views, especially if they read Richard Miniter’s book afterwards (see citation below).

2  The audiotape of Clinton was obtained exclusively by Newsmax.com.

3  “The Road to Ground Zero,” The Sunday Times, January 6, 2002.

4  According to Benjamin and Simon, The Age of Sacred Terror, p. 462. Though they attempt to discredit Ijaz, they say Ijaz “has advertised his close ties to governments in South Asia and his ability to make progress on the Kashmir conflict.”

5  Richard Miniter, Losing Bin Laden: How Bill Clinton’s Failures Unleashed Global Terror (Washington, DC: Regenery, 2003), p. 133. [Note: Another must-read. Ijaz is Chapter 6. Great work by Miniter.]

Chapter 22 of Franken’s book is called "I Grow Discouraged About the Tone." He spends its first couple pages revisiting 2001 media reports that there had been vandalism to White House offices by outgoing Clinton staffers before Bush’s people moved in. After a couple of pages, Franken tells his readers that these reports were bunk. On pages 153-154 of Lies (on page 163 in the paperback, there is a re-worded version), he writes,

"Of course, none of this horrible vandalism actually occurred ... Fourteen months later, this, the final investigation of the Clinton administration, yielded a 217-page report that found no damage to the White House nor to the Executive Office Building. ‘There is no record of damage that may have been deliberately caused by employees of the Clinton administration.’" (bold added by me because we will return to this)

    I guess Franken is a comedian, because the ‘Conclusions’ section of the actual 217-page report begins as follows (emphasis mine):

Damage, theft, vandalism, and pranks occurred in the White House complex during the 2001 presidential transition. Incidents such as the removal of keys from computer keyboards; the theft of various items; the leaving of certain voice mail messages, signs, and written messages; and the placing of glue on desk drawers clearly were intentional acts.²

    Doh! The report, released by the United States General Accounting Office (GAO), states the complete opposite of what Franken claims! Franken and his 14 Harvard researchers could not be more wrong!

    But what about Franken’s cited quotation (the one I put in bold) that appears to be from the 217-page report? The answer: It isn’t. It’s from an earlier GAO review from the spring of 2001, nearly thirteen months before the final 217-page report was released! In his "Sources and Notes" section at the back of Lies, (on page 359 (p. 387 in the paperback)) Franken references a GAO "report" and a salon.com column from May 2001. The final 217-page GAO report is dated June 2002! Franken uses sources that date before the final investigation even being conducted!!

    By the way, the line about there being "no record" (from May 2001) essentially refers to the fact that the White House/Bush administration had not themselves submitted a report (or "record") about deliberate damage that had occurred. It was not a conclusion that there was "no damage," as Franken leads his readers to believe.

    In the end, there was, in fact, several thousands of dollars in damage.

    Some of the vandalism? Here are some examples from a White House letter/report within the final GAO report. (Numberings of these examples are mine.)

1. " ... more than 20 W [keyboard] keys glued to the walls; at least 14 to 19 pieces of furniture overturned; computers piled up or overturned on floor; telephones and fax machines unplugged and/or piled on the floor in 25 or more offices; at least a dozen fax lines switched; 5 or 6 glass desk tops broken; a plant dumped in the middle of the floor; drawers open and their contents dumped on the desk or the floor; food inside of desks; and beer, wine and liquor bottles littering offices."³

2. A sticker was affixed to a filing cabinet that read "jail to the thief."⁴

3. A key to a file cabinet was found broken off and still hanging in its lock by a metal thread "(suggesting that the damage occurred not long before the transition) and, when the locksmith opened the cabinet, a Gore bumper sticker with the words ‘Bush Sucks’ was prominently displayed inside."⁵

4. A sign comparing President Bush to a chimpanzee was found "in a number of printers" and "laced" throughout reams of paper.⁶

5. A sign was taped to a desk. It was a mock MasterCard ad that included a picture of President Bush and read, "New bong: $50, cocaine habit: $300, Finding out that the good-old-boy network can still rig an election in the Deep South: priceless. For the rest of us there’s honesty."⁷

6. A sign was found reading, "VP’s cardiac unit."⁸

7. Graffiti in the men’s restroom read, "What W did to democracy, you are about to do in here."⁹

    Pretty sobering ... If this happened at a frat house, it would be one thing. But these events reportedly occurred within buildings that are part of our national treasure. Dignity, anyone? Geesh.

__________________

Notes:

1  I had considered other topics to add to this site, but a number of wonderful visitors brought this next issue to my attention. Thank you! (You know who you are.) [And ... Although the issue was brought to my attention by others, the report above was the final result of my own independent research.]

2   United States General Accounting Office, "The White House: Allegations of Damage During the 2001 Presidential Transition," June 2002, p. 19 (page 22 of the pdf file). [It's online at www.gao.gov/new.items/d02360.pdf.]

3  Ibid., p. 91 (p.94 of the pdf).

4  Ibid., p. 92 (p. 95 of the pdf).

5  Ibid., p. 99 (p. 102 of the pdf).

6  Ibid., p. 93 (p. 96 of the pdf).

7  Ibid., p. 94 (p. 97 of the pdf).

8  Ibid., p. 94 (p. 97 of the pdf).

9  Ibid., p. 102 (p. 105 of the pdf).

Popular Fox News host Bill O’Reilly is proud of his upbringing in the well-known, post-World War II, working-class community of Levittown, Long Island, in New York. On page 74 of Lies (p. 78 in the paperback), Franken tries to tell his audience that O’Reilly is not from Levittown, but from the "affluent suburb" of Westbury, which, according to Franken, is "several miles apart" from Levittown. Yikes! Did someone momentarily lose sight of his "impossibly high standard"?

    On the April 12, 2004, episode of The O’Reilly Factor, Bill exhibited the actual deed from his boyhood home for all his audience to see. Only the street location was covered. (His mother still lives there.) The words "Levittown, New York" were clearly displayed in reference to the home’s location.

    Don’t believe it? Here:

 

   

    It may help to know that, beginning in 1947, William Levitt built thousands of homes in Island Trees (renamed to Levittown). He then continued his development within the villages of Wantagh, Hicksville, and Westbury, and these newly developed subdivisions were often identified together with Levittown.²

    For years, rock legend Billy Joel has spoken of his upbringing in Levittown, although he is technically from the nearby village of Hicksville.^3,4 Will Franken brand Billy Joel a "liar" next? Ugh.

 

[Additional NOTE, added October 2005: According to this Newsday article, Franken's claim was debunked on his own radio show!

"[W]hen Franken interviewed Hofstra professor and Levittown expert Barbara Kelly on the air, he learned there was no lie to uncover.

"O'Reilly, Kelly declared, had grown up in Levittown, in an area that overlapped with the outskirts of Westbury."

Doh!]

__________________

Notes:

1  The above image should be pretty clear, but readers may also wish to view the pdf file of the deed at billoreilly.com (Adobe Reader required).

2  Geoffrey Mohan, "Levittown at Fifty: Suburban Pioneers," Newsday, Fall 1997.

3  At his 1999 induction to the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, Billy Joel said, "I'm from Levittown, and this is not supposed to happen to people like me." Read it here.

4  Steve Wick, in "Growing Up On LI: Billy Joel, Hicksville" (Newsday, 1997/1998), cites Joel's Hicksville street by name.

  Franken continues to assault Bill O’Reilly’s upbringing on the bottom of page 73 (p. 77 in the paperback) of Lies. But this time, Franken shamelessly drags O’Reilly’s mother into the fray. Franken writes,

Mrs. O’Reilly proudly told the Washington Post that the family regularly took vacations in Florida.

    At the back of his book, Franken lists a December 13, 2000, Post article as his source. Uh-oh. Nowhere in the article is there any such claim made by Mrs. O’Reilly. Go ahead: Click here to read the article yourself.¹

    Franken and Harvard’s TeamFranken score another research winner ... not!

__________________

Notes:

1  The article is the same one cited by Franken: Paul Farhi, "The Life of O'Reilly," Washington Post, December 13, 2000. [Author's note: What about those reported Florida vacations? In an October 2003 interview with Terry Gross on NPR’s Fresh Air, O’Reilly retorted, "We went to Florida one time -- on the Greyhound bus." Here is where you might find that interview.] [Also, Farhi tries to besmirch O'Reilly with the Levittown issue, but the deed from O'Reilly's home clearly debunks and discredits Farhi's effort.]

    In a silly passage on Bush strategist Karl Rove, Franken writes on page 146 (p. 156 of the paperback) of Lies that Rove

"orchestrated the most complete takeover of Texas since Sam Houston routed Santa Anna at the Battle of San Jacinto. (Sam Houston was later killed at the Alamo by terrorists.)"

    Oops. Sam Houston was not killed at the Alamo. Sam Houston died of pneumonia in 1863, some 27 years after the Alamo.¹ This slip is particularly embarrassing considering the fact that the battle cry at San Jacinto was "Remember the Alamo!"²

    Let’s hope none of those 14 Harvard researchers are history majors.

___________________

Notes:

1  Haley, James L. Sam Houston (University of Oklahoma Press, 2002), pp. 413-415.

2  Thompson, Frank The Alamo (Berkeley, CA: Thunder Bay Press, 2002).

    Franken's Lies book was researched with the aid of 14 students when Franken was granted a fellowship at Harvard.

    On page xii of Lies (p. xvi in the paperback), Franken tells his readers that his study group received seven hundred (700) applicants.

    That's interesting, because in an October 2003 interview with the Harvard Crimson, it's reported that "Franken received applications from 90 students detailing why they wanted to be in his study group." (emphasis mine)

    90? .... 700? ... They are pretty close, aren't they? (Roll eyes)

    I'm confused, Al. Which is it? Is somebody ... lying?

___________________

Notes:

The credit for this post goes to Peter Schweizer, author of the book Do As I Say (Not As I Do): Profiles in Liberal Hypocrisy. In addition to Franken, Schweizer shines the light on Michael Moore, Ted Kennedy, Barbra Streisand, the Clintons, Ralph Nader, and more. Check it out. It's a fun read. By the way, frankenlies.com is cited in his notes!

 

  On page xii of Lies (p. xvi of the paperback), Franken brags of the "intellectual heavyweights" that he hired to help him with his book at Harvard. "Intellectual heavyweights"?!? Uh-uh.

    On page 163 of Lies, Franken writes,

"[Former Georgia Senator] Max [Cleland] left three of his limbs in Vietnam. A VC grenade blew them off."

    Well, suffice it to say that even Senator Cleland, a true champion and inspiration to all disabled war veterans, never believed this. Cleland fought valiantly in Vietnam, but his tragedy was not caused by the Viet Cong. Rather, it was the result of a horrible accident caused by a grenade belonging to a fellow soldier.¹ Sen. Cleland wrote about this heart-wrenching incident in his eloquent memoir, Strong At The Broken Places.

    Franken's "intellectual heavyweights" are "fact-checking flyweights"!²

___________________

Notes:

1 Max Cleland Strong At The Broken Places (Longstreet Press (updated version, 2000)). Available at www.amazon.com .

 

In his recent book Pants on Fire: How Al Franken Lies, Smears, and Deceives, Alan Skorski (who has been featured on C-SPAN's Book TV) analyzed Al Franken's body of so-called "research," including his 2003 bestselling book Lies and the Lying Liars Who Tell Them. Skorski provides compelling evidence that "Franken appears to have plagiarized" passages of his book from a 2001 report on the Fox News Channel by the liberal organization FAIR (Fairness & Accuracy in Reporting). Skorski's most striking examples:

    FAIR, July/August 2001: "The Most Biased Name in News" by Seth Ackerman, writing about Hannity & Colmes:

Even Fox's "left-right" debate show, Hannity & Colmes--whose Crossfire-style format virtually imposes numerical equality between conservatives and "liberals"--can't shake the impression of resembling a Harlem Globetrotters game ...

    FRANKEN, Lies and the Lying Liars Who Tell Them (Dutton, 2003, hardcover 1st edition), page 63:

For those of you unfamiliar with the Hannity and Colmes dynamic, it's a conservative-versus-liberal talking head show, kind of a combination between Crossfire and a Harlem Globetrotters game.

    "Crossfire"? "A Harlem Globetrotters game"? "Conservatives"? "Liberals"? Yikes. That's a tough one to write off as a simple coincidence, especially in light of some other "striking similarities of thought and expression" that Mr. Skorski found in nearby passages:

    FAIR, writing on Brit Hume:

Fox's managing editor is Brit Hume, a veteran TV journalist and contributor to the conservative American Spectator and Weekly Standard magazines.

    FRANKEN, Lies and the Lying Liars, p. 62:

For managing editor, [Roger Ailes] chose veteran journalist Brit Hume, a contributor to the ultra-conservative Weekly Standard and the ultra-conservative American Spectator.

=-=

    FAIR, writing on Special Report With Brit Hume:

Each episode of Special Report with Brit Hume, for example, features a three-person panel of pundits who chat about the day's political news at the end of the show. The most frequent panelist is Fred Barnes, the evangelical Christian supply-sider who edits the Murdoch-owned Weekly Standard.

    FRANKEN, Lies and the Lying Liars, p. 63:

[Hume] also anchors the nightly new show, Special Report with Brit Hume, which concludes with Brit moderating a three-person panel of pundits. The most frequent panelist is prominent conservative Fred Barnes, editor of the Weekly Standard.

=-=

    In all, Mr. Skorski cites a total of ten passages in Franken's book which bear "striking similarities" to the FAIR report.

    The glaring problem: Franken does not properly cite FAIR's report. Rather, he attributes the words as his own. Franken's "Notes and Sources" section at the back of the book contains no citation of the FAIR report. A reminder: Franken composed his book during a fellowship at Harvard. The cited passages of Franken's writings do not appear to meet the criteria of Harvard's policy of academic honesty (cited at Harvard's Department of Continuing Education). In addition, the above passages do appear to fall within the definition of plagiarism as cited at Harvard's Faculty of Arts & Sciences (click "Writing with Sources: Misuse of Sources"):

Plagiarism is passing off a source’s information, ideas, or words as your own by omitting to acknowledge that source—an act of lying, cheating, and stealing.

    See also Harvard's "Writing with Sources: Common Questions about Sources" (emphasis mine):

4. Am I plagiarizing if I accidentally use a few vivid phrases from my reading without citing them? Yes; it’s your responsibility to avoid such accidents (p. 14b).

=-=

    Recently, Al Franken advised Rush Limbaugh, "Take responsibility for your actions, according to your values." Should Al follow his own advice?

    At frankenlies.com, a large number of errors, falsehoods, and misleading passages from Al Franken's Lies and the Lying Liars book have been chronicled. Last fall, Franken released a book with the ironic title The Truth. The research of The Truth has also failed miserably under scrutiny.