The Syllabus - Al Franken

Each week we will feature a new list of required reading, viewing or listening from our favorite contributors, prominent pundits, politicos, artists, bands, writers, or performers. Today we collected recommendations from the Air America Radio host.

A Bright Shining Lie by Neil Sheehan
Best book on Vietnam I’ve ever read. National Book Award winner. Took the author sixteen years to write it. He looks at the war through the lens of one guy. Colonel John Paul Vann. It’s something like 800 pages, but I could not put the book down. It shows you the complexity and history of how we screwed up in a war that shaped how a whole generation looks at the use of American force.

Hubert Humphrey’s speech on civil rights at the 1948 Democratic Convention.
Incredibly dramatic speech that was a huge political risk for Humphrey—because if Truman lost, he would have been blamed. But a great act of conscience and of passion.

Blinded by the Right by David Brock
A chilling portrait… of a partisan attack machine. Said the Washington Post.

The Price of Loyalty by Ron Suskind
Ron Suskind’s book about Paul O’Neill’s tenure as Bush’s Treasury Secretary. Paints a sad portrait of an intellectually disengaged Bush. It gives the best insight as to how the Bush White House works.

What It Takes by Richard Ben Cramer
Also a National Book Award winner. Maybe the best book about American presidential politics. An incredibly rich look at the guys who ran for president in 1988, including a cameo by an incredibly obnoxious young George W. Bush.

The Zapruder film of Kennedy’s assassination
A very shocking look at the assassination of an American president. Explains why presidents have stopped traveling in convertibles, at least in public.

The Onion, The Daily Show, The Simpsons.

All of Frederick Wiesman’s documentaries.
He’s an documentary filmmaker who makes movies about institutions—a welfare office, a hospital, a primate testing center. He gets into a place and stays there forever, until they forget he’s there. They’re all absolutely devastating. Warning: don’t watch the one about primate research while on acid.

Z.
A great movie about a political assassination and subsequent cover-up. It’s longer than the Zapruder film. Also, fictional.