True North

Now, bear in mind that if you look in the “politics” bookshelf for received wisdom, you are likely to be disappointed, Most of what’s on the “politics” bookshelf is the equivalent of bad talk radio; button-pushing mixed with selective self-adulation. I don’t take much of the genre all that seriously, even when I agree with the author.

But Al Franken’s “Lying Liars and the Lies They Tell” was particularly galling, since the “lies” were, in many cases, disagreements, differences in interpreting things - the usual stuff that comes from “communicating about complex things with humans”. By slapping the word “lies” on every disagreement, Franken set the already-sorry state of American communication back by decades.

So yes, I’m happy to see RedState’s new piece, “Bearers of False Witness and the False Witnesses They Bear”, which I link via Brodkorb (and is in turn driven by Michael’s work on Franken’s tax records):

You may think that’s an odd title for a blog post about comedian and Senate candidate Al Franken, but those are his words. In his book Lies and the Lying Liars Who Tell Them, Franken attempts to paint anyone who disagrees with him as a liar or worse. Ironically enough, this book has put the failed radio host on a path of lies and deceit, due to his failure to pay for workers’ compensation while the book was being written and researched.

Franken’s defense…ignorance. While this may apply to Franken in most cases, it is a hard sell in this instance. In order to believe Franken’s claims of ignorance on his corporate governance problems you must believe totally disregarding reality:

Read the whole case. Er, thing.

Cross-posted at Shot in the Dark. Comments welcome.