A Friend Stopped By | 01/26/2009 7:00 am

Bernie Goldberg: 'Chris Matthews Is a Journalist Hooker Putting Out for Obama'

By Myrna Blyth

Editor’s Note: Anyone who has read a women’s magazine in the last 25 years has most likely read the work of Myrna Blyth, who weighs in at wowOwow with this provocative piece. Myrna is the founding editor of More magazine, was the longtime editor-in-chief of Ladies’ Home Journal, and was senior editor for Family Circle magazine. She is the chairman of the President’s Commission on White House Fellowships. She has received many awards including the Matrix Award from New York Women in Communications, Inc., the Woman of Achievement Award from the New York City Commission on the Status of Women, and was named Publishing Executive of the Year by Advertising Age. Currently she writes for The National Review Online and is the editor-in-chief of Betty Confidential.

Bernie Goldberg is the guy who really blew the whistle on media bias.

His first book, the aptly-named Bias, published in 2001, became a much-discussed No. 1 New York Times bestseller. Bias got a boost from George W. Bush, who, soon after publication, carried a copy out of the White House and flashed it in the face of the White House press corp. In that book, Goldberg, a six-time CBS Emmy-winning TV reporter, described the liberal leanings of his Black Rock colleagues, including Dan Rather, and how their politics influenced the way they report the news.

Now a commentator on, yes, Fox, and a correspondent for HBO’s Real Sports, Goldberg’s newest work is a sort-of love story, called A Slobbering Love Affair: The True (and Pathetic) Story of the Torrid Romance Between Barack Obama and the Mainstream Media. (Why oh why are conservative writers so much funnier than their liberal counterparts?) Goldberg details the one-sided coverage of the presidential campaign, which, he believes, morphed from even just a semblance of balanced reporting into a major media man-crush on Barack Obama.

“This time it was different,” he told me. “It went beyond mere bias. During this campaign, the media crossed the line. They became activists. They were on a noble mission to help elect the first black president. They didn’t want to be witnesses. They wanted to help make history. They de facto enlisted in the Obama campaign.”

Goldberg describes case after case of partisan reporting from The New York Times’s one-sided battering of John McCain and even Cindy McCain, to the media’s outcry when George Stephanopoulos dared to ask Obama about his relationship to terrorist Bill Ayres, to Chris Matthews’s “I feel this thrill go up my leg” drool over Obama’s victory speech.

“Chris Matthews,” he writes, “is a journalist hooker putting out for Obama from the moment the senator showed some leg.”

He also describes the “Palin Derangement Syndrome," — similar to the “Bush Derangement Syndrome, a mental illness that struck millions of liberals … and left them foaming at the mouth at the mention of the president’s name.” Palin drove many in the liberal media crazy because “this pro-life, pro-gun, churchgoing woman … wasn’t one of them.” He also points out that the press kept telling us, over and over, that if Obama lost, it could only be because of racism. Yet the same reporters and commentators never expressed that concern when politicians such as Ken Blackwell or Michael Steele or Lynn Swann, all conservative black men, lost recent races. That’s because “liberals don’t really see conservative black men as black — anymore than they see conservative women as women. They see them only as conservatives. So they don’t really count."

Goldberg says he also recognizes the historic importance of Obama’s election and that his book is not anti-Obama. It is anti-media. “I don’t buy into his politics but I think he speaks eloquently. He comes off as smart. He’s cool, which is important in the United States of Entertainment. He seems a genuinely nice guy. But I don’t really know this person. The major media was supposed to find out a lot more about him during the campaign. It was their responsibility and they didn’t do it. They were cheerleaders.”

274 Reader Comments (so far…) Sign In or Register to comment

You have to know… I love my country and I hate this war and this economy!

By DeBúrca obj on 01/29/2009 9:55 am

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Considering the Republicans only stopped talking about Clinton’s blowjob about two years ago, I find this ironic.

By R.J.B. Reed on 01/26/2009 9:51 pm

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RJB Reed So why are you bringing it up now?

By Robert Thompson on 01/26/2009 11:07 pm

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And who cares!!

By Robert Thompson on 01/26/2009 11:08 pm

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You didnt respond to my post Robert….. I see you responded to others with anger and hatred you posted this I do not agree with most that is on the left, but respect their position, as long as they are not bashing and calling names. I do not respect people on any site, left or right, that simply bash. I see bashing on all sites Sounded pretty honest….. but then you respond like this to R.J.B. Reed…… among others…… did you mean what you posted to me…. or were those ideas just for me and you hold yourself to a different standard? which is it? Ill be surprised if you answer this post……… just keep up the hate…….. you will have 5 pitbulls patting you on the back and thats about it.

By Roger from Ohio on 01/26/2009 11:46 pm

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Roger, I think the best thing I can say is that we agree to diagree, on issues. I respect you for your point of view, but I have a completely different pont of view on most issues. I post my or others point of veiw that I agree with, for dicussion. I do not bash or name call, as some do on here and most blogs, both liberal and conservative. I post ideas that I believe in for discussion. Being that I owned a several businesses since that Late 1970’s, I understand that when things change, you have to change with it. With that said, I do not make changes or change my opinion on things, without investigating them completely. I try very hard, not to make the same mistakes twice, as in business it can be a financial dissaster. That is why I do not believe in Socialism, because if you study history, every example of socialism has collapsed. I believe in Captitolism, because it gives every person an equal opportunity, if they choose to take it. With that said, I did not say that every person will achieve at the same rate. Socialism stymies creativity for people. Look at the former Soviet Union. It did not collapse because of communism, it collapsed because of Socilaism. I have seen capitolism and business ownership work for me and many others, for about 35 years. It can work for anyone, if they approach it with the right frame of mind. I am and have been in real estate investment. Most people say this (like the stock market) is abad time to be in it. This is actually a very good time to be in real estate investment as well as the stock market. People make money in both good and bad market. We deal in the real estate notes as well, and this is a very good time to be in that. With what I said above, keep this in mind. Our business principles and most businesses are to help solve peoples needs. If that was not our main purpose, we would not stay in business very long. Yes there are businesses that don’t do this, but the vast majority do. Small businesses are what keep this nation going, and provides most of the jobs, and I do not mind paying my fair share of taxes, but I do mind paying for those who sit on their butts and do nothing but collect. I am not talking about people laid off from jobs, and those because of disabilities that can’t work, but the lazy ones who will not work. I am not against helping people, that need real help, such a those with disabilities (And some of those are some of the hardest working people I have met), the elderly, those who have a temporary need. I do wish that I had more to help more people in need, but I do what I can and in the ways I can. As Jesus said, “Give a man a fish and feed him for a day, teach him how to fish and feed him for a life time.” I have been on both side of the economic equation. I have gone thru very good prosperous times, and some very bad times economically. Never when things were down, did I feel that the goverment owed me anything, and I never will. God gave me talents and abilities, and I try each day to use those talents to the best I can, too help other people. This country has become in the last 30 plus years, a county that has its hand out for what the goverment can do for them, rather than looking at what they can do for themselves and others. I do believe I heard a Democratic president in 1960, say in his innagural speech that ” Ask not what your country can do for you, but what you can do for your country” I do believe that this nation has gotten totally away from what John F Kennedy said. We need to get back to that kind of attitude. I fear what will really happen to this nation, if we are attacked (and with the Islamic Terrorist) that is a very strong possibility. This nation pulled together after Dec 7, 1941, to defeat an ememy, but with the attitudes that prevail today, I’m not sure if we could or will rise up to defeat the current enemy that want to distroy us. THEY ARE VERY REAL!!

By Robert Thompson on 01/28/2009 12:29 am

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I dont understand how you are equating Socialism with President Obama…… Over the past 8 years….. i feel like the government turned its back on America. The “Fiscal Conservatives” not only borrowed from other countries to go on their spending sprees….. and they reduced the government “income” at the same time…… social programs were reduced, “friends” of the government are the ones that made most of the money. When the rich people of wall street had to start paying for their bad investments, they turned to the government to save them from themselves…… Isnt that Socialism?……….. it seems to me that if the rich are doing good….. keep the government away from their money……. but when the rich arent doing so good….. the first place they go is to the government for our money.

By Roger from Ohio on 01/28/2009 9:36 am

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Roger, “I see you responded to others with anger and hatred” Shoe me where I have reponded with anger and hatred toward anyone. Stating my views and beliefs is not responding with anger and hatred.

By Robert Thompson on 01/28/2009 12:33 am

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When you pat people on the back for their hate filled comments, that is no different than saying them yourself. Yes I have responded with anger, but the key is a response….. when Im being attacked I will defend myself. That being said, if you want to have a dialog about issues……. Id look forward to it…….. but if you dont, thats fine too.

By Roger from Ohio on 01/28/2009 9:23 am

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Well said, Robert! Everyone is culpable in this fiasco!

By A N on 01/29/2009 7:08 am

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DeB, thank God, for the Sanity of the American people! Thank you for your comment, I always enjoy reading your posts her on WOW.

By Catherine Kaiman on 01/26/2009 2:32 pm

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oops typo, that should read “here on Wow”.

By Catherine Kaiman on 01/26/2009 2:52 pm

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Ahhh - I think you’ve just proved Bernie’s point. Thanks

By shannon gaffney on 02/04/2009 11:48 pm

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Bullshit. Oh, I completely agree that we no longer have unbiased reporting of the news, but it isn’t because they lean to the left. Up until the last six months or so of Bush’s adminisration the main stream media gave him a free pass. During the entire eight years that Bill Clinton was in the White House the republican party was engaged in a full fledge witch hunt to try and find something to hang on him to keep the country from realizing what a great job he was doing as President. The press hung on every word of every accusation and most of every newscast was dominated by all of it. Richard Clark and Paul O’Neill came out of the Bush White House trying to get the media to listen to the truth about the intelligence regarding 9/11 and Iraq and couldn’t get more than a one-time blurb about it. The Enron scandal was a presage for the collapse of our economy and if it had been as doggedly pursued, investigated and reported on as White Water was perhaps the collapse may have been avoided, but the press focused more on Martha Stewart. She isn’t a friend of the Bush’s. Dan Rather was fired from CBS for trying to report the truth about Bush’s National Guard record. The phrase “media leftist bias” is another example of the republican tactic of repeating an idea loud enough and often enough that it becomes a paradigm and is just accepted as truth by those who don’t bother to look too deeply for the truth.

By Sherrie Crews on 01/26/2009 10:07 am