The first question we should ask is “why three?” Rush uses multiple lines of evidence to argue Reaganomics worked, so why limit it to three? Because Franken could only successfully manage to distort three.

Among the claims Franken ignores from Rush’s book: “Average real family income grew by well over 15 percent from 1982 to 1989” and “For the poorest fifth of Americans, real income grew almost 12 percent.” That alone shows Reaganomics worked.

As Rush also points out, the rich shouldered a higher share of the income tax burden than before: “The top 1 percent paid more than 25 percent of all federal income taxes in 1990, a 40 percent increase over 1980”.

In addition, the average citizen jumped income brackets. As Rush says, “Between 1983 and 1989, the total population under the poverty line decreased by 3.8 million people”. and “Families earning more than $50,000 (in 1990 dollars) went from less than 25 percent of families in 1980 to 31 percent in 1990“ and “of those who were in the bottom-fifth bracket in 1979, 65 percent jumped at least two income brackets during the 1980s.”

Rush also mentions that 20,000,000 new jobs were created, “82 percent of which were in the higher-skilled, higher-paying occupations.”

Oh, and the stock market “nearly tripled in value.”

Franken does not counter these facts. Nor does he counter the fact that “We experienced sustained economic growth without inflation, low unemployment, and low interest rates.” In short, Franken does not counter the reality that Reaganomics worked. That does not stop him however from claiming to counter it. Here’s a closer look.

The First Leg

Rush admits the federal deficit skyrocketed in the 1980s but blames it on spending. Franken does not dispute this, but blames the spending on Reagan while Rush blames it on the Democratic Congress.

As Franken points out, “the Gipper asked Congress for 16.1 billion more in spending than it passed into law” over the course of his presidency. But Franken is lying. According to Franken himself in a later book, Congress passed 47 billion dollars more than Reagan proposed. (Lies p. 108) So it is Rush who has a point. The question is how strong the point is.

Reagan was focused on defense spending while Congress was focused on what Rush considers wasteful spending. The President and Congress had to concede the others’ demands to get their funds approved. Reagan’s budget proposals reflected long hours of conferencing with Congressmen, working out compromises.

In the end, Rush is right that Reagan’s budget proposals would have been substantially smaller if it were not for differing Congressional priorities and the related politics and compromise. In other words, the deficits do not reflect Reaganomics. So Rush does not blame Reaganomics for them.

But more importantly, the question of who to blame for spending is a side-note at best. Rush never relied on it to prove the efficacy of Reaganomics. This means Franken used the whole argument as a straw man.

The real question about whether Reaganomics created the deficit pertains to revenue. Did we go into deficit because Reaganomics produced insufficient revenue? No. Reaganomics grew the economy and nearly doubled revenue for the federal government. Yet spending skyrocketed. That is true regardless of the reason. The fact is, increases in spending—rather than Reaganomics–caused the deficits.

Even if Reagan were wholly responsible for 80s deficits, it would reflect his spending habits not his economic growth plan (Reaganomics).

Leg Two

Here is Franken goin’ the rounds with his next straw man:

The second leg of the three-legged coffee table that is the Big Lie about Reaganomics is that Reagan’s massive tax cuts were directly responsible for what Limbaugh calls “unprecedented growth and prosperity.” This gets to the heart of supply-side economics: the less you tax the rich, the faster the economy will grow.

Take, for example, the fifties. We taxed the [expletive deleted] out of the rich. The top marginal rate was 88 percent. And the economy grew at an annual rate of just over 4 percent. Then look at the eighties. Reagan knocked the top rate down to 28 percent, and the economy grew at a yearly rate of just under 2.5 percent.

So cutting the marginal rate didn’t give us “unprecedented” growth. What it did give us was “unprecedented” deficits.”

Okay, let’s dissect this. Watch close.

As you recall, “Reaganomics worked” is supposed to be the “Big Lie” Franken accuses Rush of propping up. But the question of whether Reaganomics created growth and prosperity is equal to asking whether Reaganomics worked. Objectively, growth and prosperity were created under Reaganomics. So if Franken were to confront the question directly he would have to explain why he thinks the growth caused by Reaganomics was not enough to “count” as successful. He cannot do that so he dodges the question and obfuscates instead.

That is why Franken talks about the deficit. Still, he cannot ignore the economy altogether–so he says that it is only part of the picture–one of three “legs.” He misleadingly addresses the economy using the words “tax cuts” as though Reagan’s tax cuts were only “about” Reaganomics rather than synonymous with it. In disguising the question of whether Reaganomics worked as a side question of whether tax cuts work, Franken can then get away with less detail while appearing to address the economy of the eighties.

Then, Franken relies on illusion. He comes right out and says the economy grew under Reagan but he contrasts it with the fifties—a unique situation in which goods and services were finally returning to the market after having been on hold during the war and trade as usual was resuming. The whole world relied on the U.S. dollar since the U.S. had avoided structural damage during the war thanks to our isolation.

Furthermore, why did Franken have to cite a unique situation to state a case for high taxes? Considering that the top marginal rate was 70 percent when Reagan took office, why did Franken not point to the Carter years? Was it because of the interest rates, inflation rates, unemployment rates or all of the above?

The comparison to the fifties is not only misleading, but also unnecessary. Franken essentially argues that Reaganomics was a failure because it was not the greatest success in history. Franken gets away with it by drudging up a quote from Rush about “unprecedented” growth so it looked like Rush was the one setting it as the standard of success for the tax cuts.

However, Rush was not claiming that the growth rate was at a higher percent than ever before. What he did say, and on the very first page of the chapter no less, was that the eighties had “the longest period of peacetime growth in this nation’s history.” Then, in the paragraph after the “unprecedented” claim that Franken picked out of context, Rush went on to repeat the context of his statement, that the U.S. experienced “the longest peacetime expansion in history”.

Did Franken not see it? Did Rush not emphasize it enough? Don’t think so. After Rush repeated the statistic, he then wrote:

Did I already say that? Good. It needs to be repeated and repeated to counter the lies.

Yet Franken left out that context entirely.

Leg Three

This leg is the big diversion. Out of a bulleted list of 16 statistics in Rush’s book, Franken picks out one of the less critical claims and spends five pages attempting to refute it. He tries to turn Rush’s icing-on-the-cake into a main course.

According to Franken, the third leg is that “Reagan’s economic policies were just as good for the poor as they were for the rich.” That could mean anything and it’s not what Rush said. What Rush actually said was that the poor received the most relief as a percentage of their income.

More specifically, Rush claimed that between 1980 and 1992, “income taxes as a percentage of their income of all income groups was reduced, with each of the four lowest quintile groups experiencing greater percentage reductions than those income groups above them.” Franken conveniently skipped that part and quoted the next sentence from Rush

In other words, all income groups paid less taxes as a percentage of their income during the Reagan years, but the poor received the most relief, the middle class the next, and the rich, the least.

That is a cool point to make. Rush even put it in bold. It is not however necessary to the argument that Reaganomics worked. It just shows that tax relief for the rich was far from being the sole focus of Reagan’s methods.

Franken can’t really argue that this particular point is all that critical, so he creates the illusion that Rush was the one holding this up as central criteria. Franken says, “In 725 pages of opinion-barfing spread over two books, only once does Rush consider a point important enough to trot out a visual aid.” [p. 126]

Franken is referring to a chart Rush had used to show the reduction of tax rates.

Franken claims the numbers are cooked. What is his big problem with them?

He [Rush] leaves out payroll taxes!

[p. 127]

That means Social Security and Medicare taxes; which is interesting, because Rush specifically said the numbers are in reference to income tax. Remember the line that Franken didn’t quote, but I did, where Rush said he was talking about income taxes? That made clear what he was talking about–right?

I thought so but just to make sure, let’s look at the line before it: “…between 1980 and 1992 the wealthy not only paid more income taxes in actual dollars, but they paid a greater share of income taxes as a percentage of their income, compared to other income groups.” Wow, he mentioned “income taxes” twice in that one. Franken must have known that Rush was talking about income taxes.

So Rush did not dishonestly “leave out” other taxes. That’s like saying if someone talks about baseball they are dishonestly “leaving out” football.

Social Insurance taxes are irrelevant anyway, because they are benefit programs for the poor. What the poor pay into them is for their own use. What the rich and middle class pay is also for the poor, with little for themselves.

If we do look at them, we find that, the share of Social Insurance taxes paid by the top 1 percent rose 50 percent during the eighties while the share paid by the lowest 20% went down.

Franken also objects to using the year 1992. However if we use a different year— 1990 or 1989—the point still stands. The gap is not as wide but the poor still receive a greater percentage of income tax cut than the Rich.

Regardless, there is nothing wrong with using 1992. It concluded the Reagan/Bush era. Rush did say that Reaganomics ended in 1990 but that was in reference to the tax increase that year, which had negligible effect on Limbaugh’s numbers. The larger difference in numbers is from the increase in the Earned Income Tax Credit, a credit that was championed and expanded by Reagan.

The poor in the Country are the biggest piglets at the mother pig and her nipples. The poor feed off the largesse of this government and give nothing back…. We need to stop giving them coupons where they can go buy all kinds of junk. We just don’t have the money. They’re taking out, they put nothing in. And I’m sick and tired of playing the one phony game I’ve had to play and that is this so-called compassion for the poor. I don’t have compassion for the poor.

Now, Rush was dead serious about the issue itself, but the context he said this in was “Demonstrating Absurdity By Being Absurd.”, as he often characterizes such bits. Rush was not actually complaining that the poor “give nothing back” and “put nothing in”. This is what Rush says about it in his book:

My April Fools’ joke illustrated how quick people are to take offense even when I am obviously–at least I thought it was obvious–being absurd. Of course, I don’t believe the poor should pay more taxes. The only way they can escape poverty is to have a chance to keep what they can earn. America does have the richest poor in the world, but that doesn’t mean there isn’t a lot of misery in this country.

We do, however, have to wean people off the government pig. The country is losing its self-reliance and becoming a subsidy hog. But, of course, that is not the fault of the poor. The blame for that can be laid at the feet of liberals who use the plight of the poor to advance their goal of dominating society.

Leaving his readers oblivious to the context, Franken quips, “I guess it’s easy to be overcome with compassion fatigue when you’re carrying an extra hundred and forty pounds.”

This misinformation was not corrected in the paperback which is unsuprising since Limbaugh’s book mentioning the instance in the proper context was published before the first edition of Frankens – meaning that Franken is deliberatly lying about it, or just too sloppy to do any research on the quotes handed to him to attack.

That would be a blow to Franken, right? Wouldn’t you think?

No. Feeling irrationally triumphant over the results of the study, Franken claimed, “Limbaugh listeners thought they were the best informed and yet they were the least informed.”

Just to be sure, let’s check with the study again:

Limbaugh’s audience is no more or less knowledgeable or active than the audience for moderate/liberal or conservative talk radio.

And one more time to make absolutely sure:

Regular political talk radio listeners are more likely than non-listeners to consume all types of newsmedia (excepting TV news), to be more knowledgeable about politics and social issues, and to be involved in political activities. This is true regardless of the ideology of the hosts of the programs to which they listen.

So Franken thought he was informed about the study, but he wasn’t. It turns out Limbaugh’s listener’s were better informed than those people who didn’t listen to talk radio at all, and just as informed as other listeners to talk radio (which is mostly conservative anyway).

This ordinarily would not be ironic. However, the fact that Franken was accusing Limbaugh’s listener’s of thinking they were informed while not actually being informed–when it was actually Franken who thought he was informed but wasn’t actually informed–is pretty ironic, don’t you think?

As ironic as it is on it’s face, it is made even more ironic by Franken’s gloating. Like when he says:

…why would people so woefully lacking in the basic facts of an issue think they were the best informed? Social scientists call the phenomenon “pseudo-certainty.” I call it ‘being a [expletive deleted] moron.’

In fairness to Franken, he has sort-of admitted that his claim was inaccurate. (Lies, p.11)

He did not apologize. Instead he attempted to minimize his moronity, saying, “In the final version of the study, the findings showed that people who listened regularly to political talk radio were able to identify the President more frequently than I had given them credit for.”

It seems the whole reason Franken admitted the mistake was to utilize a deceptive technique mastered by Bill Clinton.

When asked about having sex with Jennifer Flowers, Clinton admitted having past problems with his marriage but denied the Flowers story. Here’s why. Admitting to a problem or mistake lends sympathy and credence. People think you are telling the truth because you are admitting to having done something wrong. Later, Clinton used the trick again but that time admitted to the Jennifer Flowers allegations while denying other allegations.

So Franken admitted to having made a “mistake”–without really apologizing or admitting the depth of the “mistake”–so people would believe he is honest and go along with what he says in his new book. See how it works?

BUSH ASSAILS CLINTON’S PATRIOTISM DURING VIETNAM WAR PROTEST ERA.

(Definition of “assail”: To attack violently)

Rush cited the headline as an example of media bias, explaining the article mischaracterized what Bush had said. He then rolled a clip from the October 4, 1992 interview, which was from Larry King Live, so the audience could judge for themselves. But, according to Franken, it was a clip from “a totally different part of the interview.”

Franken of course claimed that the headline accurately represented the interview. Franken even cited what he considers the relevant excerpt from the show–the real “attack on Clinton’s patriotism.”

In a minute we will discuss the relevance of the clip Limbaugh aired. But first, the part of the interview Franken accused Rush of hiding. According to Franken, it constitutes an “attack on Clinton’s patriotism.” This is the quote:

Maybe I’m old fashioned, Larry, but to go to a foreign country and demonstrate against your own country, when your sons and daughters are dying halfway around the world? I’m sorry, I–I just don’t like it. I think it is wrong.

(October 4, 1992).

That was a factual description of what Clinton did, then a follow-up of “I’m sorry, I–I just don’t like it. I think it is wrong.”

“Wrong” could mean unproductive. Or unjust. Or uninspiring. Or unfair. Or unwise. Or unsportsmanlike, unprofessional or unethical. Why would Franken assume Bush was using it to mean “unpatriotic?”

Remember the headline:

BUSH ASSAILS CLINTON’S PATRIOTISM DURING VIETNAM WAR PROTEST ERA

The Times is the one connecting the actions of Bill Clinton with a lack of patriotism. Bush did not connect Clinton’s actions with a lack of patriotism, he merely said he didn’t like it and thought it was wrong.

Therefore, Franken and the Times are implying that Clinton’s actions were so overtly unpatriotic that the mere recounting of the facts surrounding what Clinton did is by default a reference to patriotism.

So it was Franken, not Bush, who questioned Clinton’s patriotism.

Now the clip Rush played. When Franken claims the clip was from “a totally different part of the interview,” he wants the reader to think it was “totally different” than the subject of the articles. In reality, it was the primary focus in most of the articles and was the part of the interview being routinely mischaracterized by journalists to accuse Bush of attacking Clinton’s patriotism.

The comments in the clip had to do with Clinton visiting Moscow. Bush was asked a question about it and answered rather benignly, yet the backlash against him was swift and vicious. In many instances, the media compared Bush with McCarthy.

So, while the New York Times headline was one of the examples Rush showed his audience, it was only part of a larger issue Rush was confronting. Therefore, there was a very good reason for Rush to play the clip. Here’s the transcript of what Bush said in the part of the interview played by Rush:

KING: What do you make of the Clinton Moscow trip thing? You think that’s…

BUSH: Moscow?

KING: He says it was just a student trip.

BUSH: Larry, I don’t want to tell you what I really think because I don’t have the facts. I don’t have the facts. But to go to Moscow one year after Russia crushed Czechoslovakia, and not remember who you saw, I think — I really think the answer is level with the American people. I made a mistake. I’ve said I made mistakes. But don’t try to — you can remember who you saw in the airport in Oslo, but you can’t remember who you saw in Moscow.

KING: In other words, you’re saying…

BUSH: I’m just saying level with the American people on the draft, on whether he went to Moscow, how many demonstrations he led against his own country from a foreign soil — level. Tell us the truth and let the voters then decide who to trust or not.

After playing the clip, Limbaugh countered the distortions that were being made about this part of the interview, saying, “I didn’t hear one assault on patriotism. I didn’t hear one word or syllable questioning Bill Clinton’s patriotism…” As Rush pointed out, “patriotism” is love for one’s country.

The racket Franken uses here is interesting. To recap:

a) Bush is asked a question about a controversy surrounding his opponent.

b) He answers saying that he doesn’t have the facts but he thinks his opponent should level with the people.

c) This innocent call for the challenger to answer the questions he was being asked is twisted into “red baiting”– like when Dan Balz of the Washington Post asserted that the comment had “moved the issue to a different level by invoking the old specter of anti-communist suspicion and innuendo that marked American politics of an earlier era.”

d) Rush then exposed these types of distortions using the actual quote–about Moscow—the media had distorted.

e) Enter Franken. He tells his reader about a different comment Bush had made in the King interview, a comment having nothing to do with the Soviet Union or Moscow.

f) Franken does not mention the controversy about the Moscow quote.

g) Franken then quotes Rush discussing a headline and complaining about it. Franken’s reader is led to assume the headline is about the comment Franken mentioned. Franken’s reader does not know there is a reason for Rush to focus on a different quote.

h) Therefore, when Franken writes that Rush ran “a twenty-second clip from a totally different part of the interview”, which was really the Moscow clip, the reader thinks that Rush is dishonest.

It is what his readers did not know that allowed Franken to lead them to this false conclusion.

Far from having anything against women, Rush makes clear that his objection is to the “loud, militant” women who seem to base their beliefs on the idea that “to love and need men would somehow compromise women and set them back”. (Page 190, The Way Things Ought To Be)

This is Rush on the women’s movement:

I believe the women’s movement started out as a genuine and sincere effort to improve conditions. The original concerns of feminists, such as equal pay for equal work, were laudable and justifiable. People had a right to be upset at the treatment some women received, and some of their activism and protests were understandable.

(Page 189, The Way Things Ought To Be)

No decent, rational person would fault Rush for exposing the following rhetoric

“Since marriage constitutes slavery for women, it is clear that the women’s movement must concentrate on attacking marriage. Freedom for women cannot be without the abolition of marriage” (Sheila Cronen, feminist leader and spokeswoman)

“The simple fact is, every woman must be willing to be recognized as a lesbian to be fully feminine.” (from the National Organization for Women Times, January 1988)

“Compare victims’ reports of rape with women’s reports of sex. They sound a lot alike…. In this light, the major distinction between intercourse [normal] and rape [abnormal] is that the normal happens so often that one cannot get anyone to see anything wrong with it” (Katharine MacKinnon, law professor)

Since normal people would side with Rush, Franken covers these radical ideas with a skillfully worded joke:

Limbaugh was railing about how feminists believe that all heterosexual sex is rape, which, I admit, is a belief that’s very hard to defend. The thing is, though, I know a lot of women, almost all of whom consider themselves feminists, and I know only one who actually holds this belief. And we’ve been married nearly twenty years.

(Page 5-6)

That deliberately deceives the reader–who is left thinking Rush made it up. Then, with the reader softened to the idea that Rush is a liar, Franken comes right out and says it as he introduces the reader to Limbaugh’s TV show:

Limbaugh presented, in a deliberately misleading way, disinformation that was devoured whole by a studio audience…

(page 6)

Here’s how Franken pulls it off.

Franken writes, “Vouchers, says Hannity, will succeed because they will “break the nearly total government monopoly on K-12 education in this country.” That line Franken quotes is from pages 162-163 of Hannity’s book. Remember that. Franken continues

The proof?

Hannity describes a couple of since-discredited studies and then quotes an editorial saying that, “vouchers offer the only hope available to many poor students trapped in the worst schools.” Now comes the lie. “Want more proof?” asks Hannity. “Come right here to New York.”

He then trumpets The Miracle in East Harlem: The Fight for Choice in Public Education, a book that chronicles a remarkable success story…

[Lies, p. 102]

Trouble is, Franken jumped to page 167 of Hannity’s book. Hannity was not giving proof on page 167 for anything he had written on page 163. Rather, Hannity was citing evidence for a claim he made at the start of the new chapter section–on page 166.

The first line in the section reads, “Other evidence in favor of school choice is mounting.” Hannity then proceeds to offer several separate pieces of evidence. Hannity’s portrayal of the Harlem school miracle is an additional piece of evidence for school choice, separate from the op-ed quote about vouchers offering the “only hope” for some.

In other words, Hannity cited the editorial about vouchers as one piece of evidence and cited the story about East Harlem as a separate piece of evidence. Franken dishonestly linked the two.

In fact, Hannity, claiming Harlem’s public schools turned around with their own brand of school choice, writes,

The voucher movement hadn’t really gathered steam yet, and no private, parochial, or otherwise religious schools would be allowed to participate. It wasn’t exactly the brand of school choice I prefer, but it was a step forward—and it worked.

[Freedom, p. 167]

Franken ignores Hannity’s acknowledgement of school choice working without vouchers in Harlem. Instead, Franken lies

Hannity carefully avoids saying whether or not the East Harlem program uses vouchers. Suddenly, he switches to the term “school choice.”

To recapitulate: Franken listed a quote from a different part of the chapter, omitted the relevant quote and pretended Hannity had used the Harlem Miracle to substantiate a quote from a New York Times op-ed piece (written by Michael Leo Owens of Emory University).

Franken thought he would be safe because it takes a bit of unweaving to expose his setup. 
Hannity’s readers however, knew Hannity was not associating vouchers with the Harlem Miracle because he explained what the Harlem Miracle entailed.

That’s right. Hannity explained what the people in East Harlem did and it quite unmistakeably is not vouchers. Franken must have noticed that Hannity explained it because Franken copied his account of what happened from Hannity! Note the portions in bold.

Hannity’s account:

…a handful of teachers and principles in District 4 asked if they could reorganize part of their school district into small, independently run alternative public schools to which neighborhood parents could choose to send their children…

Franken’s account:

A handful of teachers and principles in District Four reorganized their district into small, independently run alternative public schools to which parents could choose to send their children.

…we find page upon page of denunciations of homosexuals, homosexuality, and homosexual practices–including, believe it or not, on page 158, a graphic description of what he calls “fisting.”

[Lies, p.99]

Hannity was actually criticizing the advocating of “fisting” to young teens in a Massachusetts student workshop in 2000 called “What They Didn’t Tell You about Queer Sex and Sexuality in Health Class.” [157, Freedom] Hannity writes about his interview with Parents’ Rights Coalition member Scott Whiteman who helped expose what was being taught to these kids.

“Besides talking about ingesting semen in front of fourteen-year-olds, they also talked about a practice called fisting,” I said. “I want parents to know what was said. I want you to explain it because they need to know how radical it was.”

“Right,” Scott replied. “The question was, ‘What’s fisting?’ The answer was, “Sticking your whole hand in the A or P of another.’ And then it was given advocacy when someone said, ‘Why would anybody want to do that?’ And a Department [of Education] employee said that it’s an experience of opening up yourself fully to someone that you want to be close and intimate with.”

[158, Freedom]

From page 134 of Slander: “Even during the media’s nightly flogging of Iran-Contra, Reagan’s approval ratings fell only 5 percentage points, from 80 percent to 75 percent.” Her endnote cites a Christian Science Monitor article from January 7, 1987. The article reports that “in last month’s Gallup poll, Reagan’s approval rating fell from 63 percent to 47 percent.” And remember, this is from people who are not only Christian, but also scientists.

So that’s how you lie with footnotes. Disgusting, huh?

Let’s think about this. If what Franken is claiming were true, why would Coulter cite the article at all? It would be like Franken citing LyingLiar.com.

That gives us at least some reason to be skeptical of what he is telling us. So let’s explore a hypothetical. Let’s say Coulter got the numbers from the article, just as she claimed. That would mean she was not actually lying. It would mean that Franken was lying when he accused her of making it up.

All right, it sounds plausible. Let us do a little research.

This is what Coulter said in her book:

The irrevocable fact that the American people adored Reagan posed a problem for liberals. They had very clearly explained that Reagan was dumb, mean-spirited, frightening and so on. But, still, Americans loved him. Even during the media’s nightly flogging of Iran-Contra, Reagan’s approval ratings fell only 5 percentage points, from 80 percent to 75 percent.

Let’s see if we have this right. Coulter was talking about how the American people felt toward their President. She was making the case that, no matter what the headlines of the stories read, people still loved Reagan. Right? Right. Keep this in mind.

Now what about the article, does it not prove her wrong?

The article, from the Christian Science Monitor, was about how things were looking good for Reagan. Now, you might ask, why would an article that shows a huge rating drop for someone make the case that things are looking good for him? Because the article discredits the 63 percent to 47 percent drop. That particular poll represented the way people felt due to the Iran-Contra headlines. The article points out that there was another poll. According to the article

the second [poll] reflects the public’s actual feelings toward the President.

As you might guess, the President’s rating in the second poll–the one relevant to the point Coulter was making–fell from 80 to 75 percent. Those are the same as the numbers Coulter supposedly “made up”.

In her book Slander, Coulter wrote

…on British TV on Christmas Day, 1994, Jesse Jackson compared conservatives in the U.S. and Great Britain to Nazis: “In South Africa, the status quo was called racism. We rebelled against it. In Germany, it was called fascism. Now in Britain and the U.S. it is called conservatism.” The New York Times did not report the speech.

The fact it was a Christmas speech worked in Franken’s favor. Who would associate a Christmas speech with the kind of hate Jackson spewed? All Franken had to do was leave out the most important part and his spellbound readers would hold on tight and enjoy the lie. Only Franken knows how many lies were available to choose from, but in the end, he accused her of “overloading” a search. This is it:

On page 8 of Slander, Coulter refers to a controversial 1994 Christmas Day speech given by Jesse Jackson on British TV “The New York Times did not report the speech,” she complains. Checking the endnote reveals her methodology. “LexisNexis search of New York Times archives from December 1994 through January 1995 for ‘Jesse Jackson and Germany and fascism and South Africa’ produces no documents.” Well, yeah.

A more reasonable search (Jesse Jackson and Christmas and Britain) shows that, yes, the Times did run an article on December 20 about the controversy using excerpts of Jackson’s speech, which was prerecorded.

Using Coulter’s technique, I can prove that no newspaper has ever covered anything…

While it was deceptive to withhold the significance of the words “Germany” and “fascism” and “South Africa”, Franken had even finer arts of deceptive communiqué up his sleeve. Notice that he used the word “overload” while subtly leaving it up to the reader to determine whether “overload” referred to the number of words or to the relevance of the words. As you will see, that left a lot of wiggle room that he was able to utilize to manipulate the innocent reader.

This is how it worked.

The few readers who happened to know the relevance of the words she used were left to think she “overloaded” the search by using too many. Franken leaves the rest—the vast majorities—of the readers to assume the word “overloaded,” means Coulter sabotaged the result with words having nothing to do with the speech and therefore being unlikely to appear in the article. Franken had his bases covered. All he had to do was say “Well, yeah.” and if they did not fall into one trap, they would fall into the other.

In order to seal the deal on his clever phony argument he just needed to doctor some evidence that Coulter’s search method produced a false negative. To do this he uses a very benign search (“Jesse Jackson and Christmas and Britain”) that is both short and leaves out the supposed sabotage words. This satisfies both interpretations of “overload”. Then Franken throws out this lie:

…yes, the Times did run an article on December 20 about the controversy using excerpts of Jackson’s speech…

“About the controversy”? The Times article does not even mention the controversy. However, Franken is covered once again. If his readers look the article up, they find a reference to a different “controversy”; the station aired Jackson’s speech at the same time as the Queen’s Christmas Day broadcast. Here’s a quote from the article, aptly titled, “Will Jesse Jackson Beat Queen in British Ratings? Stay Tuned”:

Billed by the station as an “alternative (to the) Queen’s speech,” Mr. Jackson is appearing at the invitation of station officials, who are promoting his appearance as part of a week-long schedule of holiday programming devoted to minority affairs and entertainment, built around the theme of celebrating a ‘Black Christmas.’

As for the supposed “excerpts from the speech” that Franken claimed were in the article, this is all there was:

‘The lives of too many of our young people are going to waste,’ Mr. Jackson is quoted as saying. ’The oppressed must engage in sane, sober, sensitive and disciplined resistance to their oppression.’