Some of you may be wondering why did I pick up this book and read it. Well honestly, I at first thought it would be a great "get-to-know-the-enemy" book. But after reading some choice sections I found myself agreeing with many statements from Mr. Goldberg. He does preface the book with the idea that not everyone will agree with everyone listed. I guess I'm one of those everyones. Most of the book is just a big list of anyone that has ever bad mouthed George W. Bush. So according to Mr. Goldberg if you bad mouth the president, you are screwing up America. It may sound as if I'm oversimplifying the book, but that is pretty much most of the people listed. However, there are some of the people listed that I found myself agreeing with.
So let's put the Bush Basher's aside, and focus on the parts of the book that actually took some thinking and some genuine bravado to bring out in the open. Oh, wait first, to give away the ending the #1 person is Michael Moore. On most of the people listed in the book Mr. Goldberg writes up a page or two about how/why they are screwing up America. A few of the folks listed are an exception. Michael Moore is one of the exceptions. All Mr. Goldberg does is print Mr. Moore's picture and puts stars around the number one. I guess he's got a personal vendetta against Michael Moore.
There are a couple of others that don't warrant a full write up they are: #95 Courney Love & #90 Michael Jackson. Courtney's write up is simply one word, "Ho." And as for Michael Jackson....I think we can all agree he didn't even deserve a write up.
It is weird that the worst write up in the whole book is one who registered enough to have his name to be on the cover of the book, Al Franken. The write up on Al Franken is really nothing more than childish banter. Mr. Goldberg fakes an interview with Al Franken and the only words out of Al Franken's side of the interview are basically "Liar" or "You are Lying." It wasn't even entertaining.
Now for the ones I really agree with. All the people in the news media and entertainment field, (especially gangasta rap). Mr. Goldberg comes from the news media and even won Emmys for the news program "48 Hours." I think that makes him qualified to speak enough on this topic. His complaint and mine, is that the news media has shifted to infotainment and news no longer matters. The media thinks the public is dumb and thinks that 2 straight weeks of talking about Anna Nicole Smith is news and no other news needs to be aired. Okay this book was published before Anna died and, in fact, Anna is #53 in his book, but that is a recent example of what has gone wrong with the news and many of the ideas presented when discussing the people in the news industry. Yes, he names names.
For the entertainment field, let's focus on gangsta rap. While I am one of the first to champion freedom of expression in the arts, and that music should reflect a culture, I'm not one to say that the negatives of that culture are the reflections needed. In gangsta rap it is great to sing/rap about how many Ho's, bitches or skanks you can slap and make do anything you wish. They love to push that women are worthless except for one thing, and that the almighty bling is where it's at. All I can say is C'MON!!!!
Okay, there's my rant. Back to the book.
So as you can see this book can rile you up no matter which side of the fence you are on. Left or Right, you will cheer and jeer at Mr. Goldberg.
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