Dammit! Now I have to buy the book!

I was going to anyway, even though I have so many unfinished books and other projects I'm ashamed of myself. In fact, I wasn't sure I even I really wanted to read it. I just want to see it on the Top 10 list over on Amazon.com. But I just finished the intro and fell for that wonderfully cranky prose all over again.

In recent times, the right has ginned up its “liberal media” propaganda machine.
Books by both Ann Coulter, a blond bombshell pundette, and Bernard Goldberg,
former CBS News producer, have topped the best-seller lists, stringing together such
a series of charges that, well, it’s amazing neither one thought to accuse “liberals” of
using the blood of conservative children for extra flavor in their soy-milk decaf lattes.
While extremely popular with the media they attack, both books are so shoddily writ-ten
and “researched” that they pretty much refute themselves. Their danger derives
less from the authors’ respective allegations than the “where there’s smoke, there’s fire”
impression they inspire. In fact, barely any of the major allegations in either book
stands up to more than a moment’s scrutiny. The entire case is a lie, and, yes, in many
instances, a slander. Although I abhor the methods of both authors, I do not feel they
can go unanswered. Ideas, particularly bad ones, have consequences. The myth of the
“liberal media” empowers conservatives to control debate in the United States to the
point where liberals cannot even hope for a fair shake anymore. However immodest
my goal, I aim to change that.

You gotta love Eric's sense of humor. The title--What Liberal Media?--sums up the bewilderment we all felt when we liberals rolled off of our futons, and opened our copies of the New York Times over our bowls of organic granola, to discover we had the power to control the hearts and minds of American public. You also gotta love his salute to Tapped, Atrios, and company for their work at debunking the myth.