Why Not Me?

Rating:
Summary: Disappointing
Review: Al Franken's "Why Not Me?" is a satiric account of politics documenting his fictional but successful run for the U.S. presidency in 2000. The story is presented through a pastiche of faux diary entries from the campaign trail, chapters of a Bob Woodward novel documenting the first 100 days of the Franken presidency, several magazine and newspaper stories, and transcripts, among other things. As such, the novel reads somewhat like a scrapbook--with similar ease and discordance.

There are certainly laugh-out-loud moments in the book, but it is in general flat and lacking the political insight that Franken's "Rush Limbaugh Is a Big Fat Idiot and Other Observations" had. The story is about Franken running for the Democratic nomination on a single issue, ATM fees charged by banks. When that platform does not seem to capture the nation's interest, he turns to insurance companies for funding and agrees in return to add deregulation of the banking industry (thus allowing insurers to enter the market) to his platform. Along the way, he and his staff lie, commit battery, manufacture and take drugs, and run a phone-sex line.

Ultimately, the novel portrays Franken as an oversexed moron, an image that does not work entirely well. Franken, as author, has difficulty presenting an insightful political satire about Franken, the bumbling candidate. The majority of the funniest jokes, therefore, are more often salacious than politically insightful. In the end, there is simply too little to justify the 289 pages, and the real laughs are therefore too few by comparison.

Rating:
Summary: Al Franken writes another winner
Review: If you are a intense Al Franken fan back from the years of SNL, as I am, this "novel" will capture your interest moreso than any I have read so far. Laugh-out loud comedy in the form of bringing Al Gore down through subversive and humorous tactics show how American politics could let an ordinary man take the ropes at our nation's highest office. Although a good friend to President Clinton in real life, this pseudo-diary adds the perfect blends of speeches, entries of his hatred for his family, treating of campain chairs as children, and extra-marrital affairs which are never discovered. The attachment to a ATM issue which gives him a 38% dominance over Al Gore seems a bit upserd, but lends the reader some powerful commendary on the type of people running for office. Absolutely a winner that left my sides aking from laughter.

Rating:
Summary: Very funny, very witty political satire and human tragedy
Review: This is a hilarious account of Al Franken's campaign for presidency, election win, and then disgrace that ended with his resignation as president after only 144 days in office. It is classic Al Franken, though it felt to me a little more teenage boy humor than he usually has - this is not a bad thing, just a different thing. In the context of his campaign in New Hampshire and Iowa with Dan Haggerty, Al's alcoholic brother, Dick Morris, and a few others using rented cars and sharing hotel rooms, it makes sense to include lots of fart and physical humor jokes.

The best part of the book, as others have noted, is the campaign diary. I laughed out loud many, many times, even on the subway with lots of people around. It is simply hilarious, sometimes gutbustingly hilarious, almost always at least a chuckle. The diary works so well, because it is so honest. He recorded all his bad thoughts (hating New Hampshire people enough to refer to them as "inbred", his time spent with prostitutes, etc.), his brother's drunken fests of hitting people with boards, etc. Franken's writing is such that the characters have a real consistency in their actions throughout the course of the campaign year, and after the election. The demise of his presidency reads like a really funny Greek tragedy, filled with ennui and hubris. This is very good writing - tight, succinct, and awfully funny - and very good at skewering people, politics, and traditions, of all faiths, beliefs, and inclinations, whether on the right or on the left. The rest of the book is also very good. If the book were only the non-diary material, it would still be very funny. The situation is simply that the diary is ***so*** extra-hilarious, that the humor in the other parts seems diminished in comparison. The transcripts of Franken's debates against Gore will leave you shaking with laughter, too.

Franken takes many digs on Gore and Democrats, and of course nails the republicans and corporations, and the whole political machine, with his wonderfully funny sarcastic wit. This is a book that you should read, especially if you like humor.

Conservatives, probably especially of the Christian Right type, will probably not like it because Franken doesn't worship Ronald Reagan. Normal thinking people, though, will find this wonderfully funny and entertaining and get a few hours of decent laughter out of this skewer of the political process - skewers that are aimed at Democrats and Republicans and Independents alike.

Rating:
Summary: Gutbustingly hilarious and poignant too
Review: This is the third Franken book I've read - I read _Rush Limbaugh is a Big Fat Idiot_ and _Liars..._ before this 1999 book. In the other two mentioned Al Franken aims his deadpan and dead-aim wit at our nation's crop of so-called conservative (actually reactionary: conservatives want to keep the status quo; Limbaugh, Coulter, O'Reilly et al want to take us back to the good Old Days of the 19th Century) commentators and the politicians for/over whom they slaver.

In _Why Not Me?_, Franken goes to town on the entire American political circus, skewering left right and center. The story of his fictitious campaign for President, landslide election, and brief dysfunctional presidency satirizes anyone who's ever thrown their hat into nomination ring, as well as the corrupt dog and pony show of campaign politics. He takes on not just the politicians themselves - particularly his "rival" for the nomination, Al Gore - but also the pundits, consultants, campaign handlers and groupies, and corporate campaign contributors.

I read _Why Not Me?_ in two sittings, interrupted only by fits of hysterical laughter. Anyone with the slightest interest in American politics needs to read this one - although I should warn you that you may laugh yourself painful.

Rating:
Summary: Fun for insiders, dull and obnoxious for others
Review: This would be the LAST place I would send someone to get a taste of Al Franken. The first half of the book makes the same jokes over and over and over and over again, and throughout, you really need to know a lot of Washington inside stuff to get the jokes. In some ways a sharp expose of our political and media system, and in other ways far, far, far too long with the general feel of a train wreck.