Hyping his book 100 People Who Are Screwing Up America (And Al Franken is #37) (HarperCollins, July 2005) on NBC's Today, former CBS correspondent Bernard Goldberg claimed that “the people in the middle of the country get the central message” of his book while people on the coasts don't, even though “they're responsible for the problem” of cultural vulgarity. According to his book's jacket, Goldberg lives in Miami, Florida.

From the August 11 broadcast of NBC's Today:

MATT LAUER (co-anchor): Who's this book for?

GOLDBERG: This is a book for anybody who cares about the culture that they live in. And what I've noticed is that there's a tremendous, tremendous disconnect between regular, ordinary Americans, and I use the term in the best sense, who live in the middle of the country --

LAUER: Right.

GOLDBERG: -- and the people who live in what Tom Wolfe, the great author and journalist, calls the “blue parentheses” on both coasts. The people in the middle of the country get the central message of the book -- that the culture has gotten too angry, too mean and too vulgar. They see it all the time in their lives. And the people on the coasts -- “What? What problem? What are you talking” -- but they're responsible for the problem.