In any case, the exercise would have been pointless: If I had hurt Al Franken, it wouldn't have proven anything about the truth or falsity of my contention that American culture has been feminized. This is apparently lost on Franken, upon whom much is lost. In "Lies," he argues in two keys, juvenile and sophomoric, and when those two modes fail him, he gets someone to draw cartoons for him. He suggests in his book that I abruptly stopped talking about the creeping wishy-washiness of American life, scared out of this theme by his terrifying challenge to me.
Nonsense. I have discussed the theme in pretty much every speech I delivered since then. I talked on Fox News and other networks after the 9-11 attacks about the nation's new appreciation of masculinity. And I have written columns about the topic, most recently in a piece knocking Democratic presidential candidate John Kerry for his recent resort to quick (and probably fake) public tears.
Most of this information would have shown up in a Nexis search, or -- even better -- a brief phone call to me by one of Franken's phalanx of Harvard researchers (whatever happened to veritas?). But there is a phrase in journalism, "too good to check." It's used about those convenient claims that probably won't withstand fact-checking, so you don't bother. This is exactly what Franken did.
He preferred to rely on incomplete information in order to create an untrue impression. This is a deception, a kind of lie. A small one, perhaps, but telling. Al Franken has had great success with his book about lies and lying liars. And why shouldn't he? He knows of what he writes.