Shortly after the publication of Al Franken's "Lies and the Lying Liars Who Tell Them: A Fair and Balanced Look at the Right,"Fox -- objecting to Franken's use of Fox's phrase "fair and balanced" and to the appearance of Fox News personality Bill O'Reilly's face on the cover -- requested a preliminary injunction against the book. Franken was later asked when he had first heard about the absurd lawsuit.

"I was on vacation," he recalled, "and I was thinking about ways to market my book. One night I go to bed and I'm reading The Tipping Point by Malcolm Gladwell. I get about halfway through and I start falling asleep. I close the book and go, 'Must think of Tipping Point for my book. Must think of... zzzzz.' The next thing I know, my assistant comes in saying, 'Al! Al! You're being sued by Fox.' I look at him for about a second and a half and say, 'Good!'"

[The suit indeed proved to be both an embarrassment to Fox and a boon to Franken -- whose book promptly shot up to No. 1 (from No. 489) on Amazon's best-seller list.]