GREAT TITLE! Goldberg hits the nail on the head with his apt depiction of the mainstream media’s relationship with Barack Obama as “A Slobbering Love Affair” which became all too apparent at the inauguration where Obama became our first African-American President as well as our first “celebrity in chief”. Barnes & Noble where I bought the book has a prominent table display (more like an alter) dedicated to Obama piled high with his books, tapes, videos, posters, and various other commemorative Obamabilia. Goldberg asserts that the elite media’s liberal bias, for the first time in journalistic history, has become blatant media activism. However, he astutely argues that the activist media didn’t win the election for Obama but it did clearly help in the creation of a powerful “cult of personality” or as Goldberg amusingly brands it: “Bamalot” which was particularly effective during the Democratic primary campaign against Hillary Clinton the first “post gender” candidate. Unfortunately for her the liberal media believes race trumps gender.

To boost his research credibility Goldberg in the appendix reproduces the executive summary of the Media Research Center report on Media Activism of the three major television networks. The study concluded that Obama received overwhelmingly more favorable press than unfavorable with the networks minimizing Obama’s liberal ideology as well as downplaying or ignoring major Obama gaffes and scandals. NBC Nightly News was the most lopsided with 10 times more pro-Obama than anti-Obama reports. There are also insightful chapters on the overt liberal bias of MSNBC and that “One Angry Man” Keith Olbermann aka “Deranged Bush Basher”. Ironically, despite its focus on media bias the book is surprisingly to borrow a phrase “fair and balanced” in that it exposes bias and activism in both electronic and print media. (Sorry that was a joke I couldn’t resist.) Goldberg is a veteran journalist who started out as a staunch liberal and reported for CBS news for 28 years. And when he “saw the light” became a conservative and wrote in 2001 his first book “Bias” exposing the liberal slant of the established media. Journalists over the last two decades have become overwhelmingly liberal and vote for the Democrat 70% of the time. Goldberg argues that if the media ever hopes to convince voters to once again trust their reporting the mainstream press will need a “progressive” affirmative action policy to employ more than a few “token” conservative reporters to level the pervasive liberal tilt of American newsrooms. After all isn’t affirmative action a sacred liberal ideal to atone for past injustices.