From: art@world.std.com (Al Thompson)
Subject: Re: (no subject given)
Organization: The World Public Access UNIX, Brookline, MA
	<nate.1105@psygate.psych.indiana.edu>
Date: Mon, 25 Jan 1993 21:39:17 GMT

In article <nate.1105@psygate.psych.indiana.edu> nate@psygate.psych.indiana.edu (Nathan Engle) writes:

   harry@hershele.alf.dec.com (Harry Katz) writes:
   >vengeanc@uxa.cso.uiuc.edu wrote:
   >       Here's the situation.  Rush is an ENTERTAINER first and
   >       foremost.  He is not a journalist, reporter, or Geraldo Rivera.

   >If Rush is not a journalist or a reporter then he must be a "Geraldo
   >Rivera," that is, an entertainer posing as a reporter.

       That was certainly the impression I got last week one day when a lady 
   caller took Rush to task for being so down on Clinton and Rush hurried to 
   defend his recent almost single-minded focus on the antics of the new 
   administration. When he posed himself the question about why it's important 
   for him to concentrate on Clinton so much, his response (to himself) was 
   that he was trying to be a "good reporter". I made a mental note of the 
   phrase at the time because I so often hear the claim that Rush makes no 
   pretense of being a reporter.

You focus on one remark and then use that to attempt to refute the claims
that Rush says he's primarily an entertainer.  Got a flash for you, he
reports a lot of things, but that doesn't make a reporter.  He has his
biases and, unlike many who claim to be "reporters", doesn't deny them.

       I would say that Rush may not have started out thinking of himself as 
   a reporter, but I think that the mail Rush has been getting from Ron Reagon 
   and "Chuck" Heston may have gone to his head.

I would bet that his performance in the market place has gone even more
to his head.

 I believe that the focus of 
   Rush's show *is* changing and that Rush's goals have recently been shifted 
   so that entertainment is now subservient to the primary goal which is to 
   make Clinton look as foolish as possible. Perhaps he believes that those 
   two goals are one in the same thing, but that's certainly not what his 
   conservative lady caller thought.

Of course he thinks making Clinton look foolish is entertaining.  I think
so too.

   >       He can do anything he wants to keep the show moving and
   >       interesting.  He has no obligation to let anyone say anything!
   >       He openly admits this, and callers therefore have no excuse
   >       for not knowing this when they call.  

   >Unfortunately, many of his supporters on this net do not know this fact
   >and it colors their perception of the man and his ideas.

       Well, also unfortunately many of his observers on the net are 
   handicapped by their near-futile attempts to take Rush at his word. For 
   a long time I believed that there was sufficient evidence to justify 
   Rush's claim that he's not trying to be a reporter, but his remark last 
   week about "good reporting" has convinced me that Rush's previous claim 
   is no longer applicable.

Let's see if we've got this right.  The man says he has a political
position, screens his calls so they make him look good and is there to
make money and we're not supposed to take him at his word?  When was the
last time the New York times or Dan Rather said they were trying to make
money?  What do you want?  Do you want him to stop saying he's an
entertainer and really claim to be a reporter so you can say "I told
you so"?

       IMHO Rush now views himself as a news reporter in his role as mouthpiece 
   of the "Loyal Opposition" (as opposed to the old Democratic opposition which 
   was presumably "Disloyal"). If Rush is still an entertainer then all I can 
   say is that he's turned into a much more mean-spirited one than he was last 
   year about this time when he and everyone else thought that Bush had the 
   election in the bag.

He may or may not be more mean spirited but I just don't understand your
problem.  He says he's an entertainer.  Why do you want him to pretend to
be a reporter????????

Newsgroups: talk.politics.misc,alt.politics.elections,alt.politics.clinton