Speaking of Bernard Goldberg

There's a new poll on the Counterbias home page that you should vote on.

On that note, TIME has an interview with the beloved Bernie Goldberg. Here's a choice bit:

GG: How did you compile your list?

BG: I really think that there are a lot of people out there, liberals as well as conservatives, Democrats as well as Republicans, who say that this country has just gotten too angry in recent years, too nasty and certainly too vulgar. There’s this tendency to believe that this stuff just happens in societies—societies just evolve; nobody’s to blame. I don’t believe that. I think people are to blame. These aren’t the 100 worst people in America; they’re 100 people who in my view are screwing things up.

So Goldberg's thesis, the same one that he's also put forth to Jon Stewart, is that American discourse and popular culture is getting too "nasty", "angry" and "vulgar".

Of course, this means all the rational names in American journalism and politics--all liberal of course--are responsible. Is Goldberg's thesis just a cover story for a book in which liberals are the enemy for no other reason than having an opinion differing from Goldberg's? Absolutely.

Bill Moyers, Howard Dean, George Soros, Al Gore, John Edwards, Dan Rather, Paul Krugman, Jimmy Carter, Arthur Sulzberger -- all rational people, yet part of the top 20 of those contributing to the downfall of America. Funny how there's no Republican equivalent to the mention of Paul Begala, or a Republican equivalent to any of the mostly fine people listed in McCarthy's -- er, Goldberg's -- book. Perhaps this was a tome crafted for Bush rubes for the sole benefit of Bernie's bank account? Why, yes, that would be the case.

As Goldberg says in the interview, he is no longer liberal "because they come off as snobby and elitest. I think they look down their nose at ordinary Americans". In crafting his delinquent book and engaging in the ensuing publicity rounds, Goldberg is doing exactly that. Maybe he's still a "liberal" after all?