frankenlies.com
#6: No Broken Bones!
Franken writes on page 218 (paperback, p. 227*) of Lies that former Bush foreign policy advisor Richard Armitage "bolted" from a Senate hearing and "[knocked] over veteran reporter Helen Thomas, breaking her hip and jaw."
Helen Thomas is that 80-something-year-old reporter who used to work for UPI and now writes for the Hearst Corporation. Did Armitage really knock over and break this elderly reporter’s hip and jaw?
How does one go about finding out if this really happened? Write to Helen Thomas!
The next morning, this writer received a reply.
Well, that answered that!
Rest assured, this author was not the only one duped by Franken’s ad hominem on Armitage.
In a book review of Lies, Mary Lynn F. Jones of The Hill wrote that she "loved Franken’s [1996] Rush Limbaugh book; almost every page made me laugh out loud."1 But about Lies, she wrote, "Franken’s tendency to mix fact with fiction [also] left me wondering sometimes what was true and what wasn’t."2 Then, as her example, she specifically cites the Richard Armitage-Helen Thomas passage!3
Once again, is this what Franken means by his "impossibly high standard"? They are told earlier in the book that he was aided by 14 Harvard researchers, and that he loves America "enough to engage his readers honestly." (Lies, page 20 (paperback, p. 20 also))
Tip: If Al Franken ever tries to sell you a car, run.
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Notes:
1 Mary Lynn F. Jones, “Franken’s Humor Overpowered by Cynical Look At the Right,” The Hill, September 9, 2003. [It’s online here.]
2 Ibid.
3 Ibid.
* At the bottom of pages 24 and 227 of the paperback, Franken says that "the Helen Thomas thing is a joke" (p. 227) and is not true. On page 24, he refers to me as "one enterprising, if dense, blogger."