Frankenfox

By Crispin Sartwell

Al Franken's new book is entitled *Lies, and the Lying Liars Who Tell Them: A Fair and Balanced Look at the Right*. The title is a parody, first, of Ann Coulter's best-selling conservative diatribe *Slander: Liberal Lies About the American Right*. And it also makes parodic use of Fox News's slogan "Fair and Balanced." Fox's Bill O'Reilly is depicted on the cover.

Fox has sued Franken and his publisher for infringement of its trademark. The suit is a pure nuisance, mere obnoxious hooha, because parody itself is protected under American copyright law.

Fox asserts a trademark on a simple cliche, a mere hackneyed pairing of words that is used incessantly in every journalism 101 course and textbook. And though this assertion is brimming with idiocy and arrogance(tm), it is nevertheless inspiring. I myself am preparing to claim ownership of "black and white," "shock and awe," "bacon and eggs," and "Ben and J-Lo."

Asserting ownership of fundamental moral concepts such as fairness as a marketing strategy is likewise an idea whose time has come, an idea that crystallizes the way of life of our great nation, a beacon of freedom in a benighted world. I intend to sue anyone who publishes the term "justice," for instance, or "love," or who seeks to apply them in their nation or their lives.

And now that Fox News owns fairness and balance in perpetuity, it finds itself with the leisure to contemplate their meaning with the sort of witheringly honest self-scrutiny for which O'Reilly and Sean Hannity are so justly celebrated.

Or perhaps Fox News's use of "fair and balanced" is itself parodic.

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Crispin Sartwell writes from Railroad, PA.