Although the facts seemed to emerge without end, members say it was difficult to research politically sensitive material.

“It’s especially hard when you’re writing a book criticizing people for drawing stupid conclusions from things,” Barr says. “If you’re trying to punish people for being intellectually sloppy, you have to be intellectually clean.”

And though the book’s humor has earned it acclaim throughout the nation, Franken and his team say the subject is serious.

“The lesson from reading this book is that anyone who reads critically should come across this stuff,” Barr said.

“I was motivated [to write this] because I was really distressed about what was happening in the country,” Franken says. “It’s funny but there are parts that aren’t. There are parts that are meant to be funny but are about really serious shit.”

Facing the Backlash

Since Lies’ release, Franken has faced criticism of his work from many corners—the book has sparked an accusatory column in the Los Angeles Times, a lawsuit from Fox News and an angry backlash over a prank Franken played on Attorney General Ashcroft and other right wing figures in the drafting of the work.

“I think the book really tapped a nerve,” McCormack says.

In September, David Horowitz wrote a scathing editorial in the Los Angeles Times that called Harvard one of the Ivy League’s “left-wing think tanks” and attacked the KSG for funding what it called a politically partisan book.

Wikler shrugs off the accusation, saying that TeamFranken’s liberal slant was clear to Harvard from the beginning.

“People criticize the book for looking at the right,” he says. “It’s in the title. The ‘fair and balanced’ is a joke.”

“It’s vindicating that we can expose these frauds for who they are and people can actually read it.” Rabin adds. “We never claimed we weren’t Democrats.”

Franken says that the KSG chooses fellows from both sides of the political spectrum. Before he became a fellow, he was asked to speak at the KSG by President Bush’s Republican cousin—a fellow at the time—whom Franken befriended while working at NBC.

“[Shorenstein] fellows aren’t [always] liberal,” Franken says. “They knew when they got me they were getting a liberal.”

Whether or not it was Harvard’s place to support a book that takes a stance left of center, the Shorenstein Center has acknowledged that the book has scholarly merit.