Hey, Rupe! Media Log is Fair and Balanced (TM), too! And I mean it the way I presume you mean it, at least when you're talking among yourselves over drinks and cigars: ironically, with a good laugh at the rubes you've bamboozled into thinking that it's true.

Anyway, Fox is suing Al Franken for trademark infringement, charging that the title of his forthcoming book, Lies and the Lying Liars Who Tell Them: A Fair and Balanced Look at the Right, would "blur and tarnish" the image of the Fox News Channel. (So why aren't they suing Sean Hannity?)

It gets better. According to this account in the New York Times, Fox contends, "Franken is neither a journalist nor a television news personality. He is not a well-respected voice in American politics; rather, he appears to be shrill and unstable. His views lack any serious depth or insight."

Not to appear to take this drivel seriously, but anyone who has paid any attention whatsoever knows that Franken's political analysis is as deep and serious as that of anyone on Fox, with the possible exception of Britt Hume. It's just that Franken also happens to be a very funny guy.

Here's a Q&A with Franken on his book -- and on his recent confrontation with Bill O'Reilly, who didn't like it one bit when Franken exposed O'Reilly's claim to have won a Peabody Award as something other than the truth.

Berkowitz online. The Boston Globe's website redesign is now well along (Woo, hoo! It looks like the Herald's!), and Peter Berkowitz's essay on the raging moderate known as George W. Bush can be read here.

On the other hand, I was going to link to James Carroll's excellent Globe column today on anti-Semitism within the Catholic Church (yes, he's got something new to say) -- but today's editorials and op-ed columns were not online. Perhaps they will be later this morning.