From: art@world.std.com (Al Thompson)
Newsgroups: talk.politics.misc,alt.fan.rush-limbaugh
Subject: Re: (no subject given)
Date: 26 Jan 93 19:55:50 GMT
	<ART.93Jan25162920@world.std.com> <nate.1112@psygate.psych.indiana.edu>
Organization: The World Public Access UNIX, Brookline, MA

In article <nate.1112@psygate.psych.indiana.edu> nate@psygate.psych.indiana.edu (Nathan Engle) writes:

   [talk.politics.misc axed from Newsgroups line, sorry if that's where 
   you're reading this]

   art@world.std.com (Al Thompson) writes:
[...]

   >Crap.  He says over and over again that he is an entertainer, that he is
   >in business to make money and the purpose of the calls is to make him
   >look good.  Listen to him sometime I'm sure you'll hear it if you bother
   >to listen.

       I listen to Rush almost every day (much to Mrs Engle's dismay), but 
   I don't feel that the fact that Rush says things over and over constitutes 
   categorical proof of their truth or falsehood.

There seems to be some sort of a problem here.  The criticism would be
valid if Rush claimed to be a "reporter" and then proceeded to act as an
editorialist.

 I happen to agree with that 
   lady caller who felt that Rush is to an ever-increasing degree sacrificing 
   entertainment for the purpose of taking every possible trivial jab at 
   Bill Clinton. 

I don't know, I find taking jabs at Slick to be very entertaining.

His periods of ranting are getting longer and he's taking 
   less calls than I can remember for the past 2 years I've been listening.

Maybe he just feels he doesn't need them as much to make himself look
good, that's there purpose you know.

   >       Is entertainment the reason that Rush repeats his anti-liberal 
   >   propaganda so much, or could it be that he's trying to make a point 
   >   above and beyond the simple goal of making people laugh? Do you think 
   >   that he really believes that liberal-bashing is funny no matter how 
   >   often its repeated, or is he just willing to sacrifice a little humor 
   >   for the purpose of bashing liberals?

   >Of course he's trying to make a point.  He says that all the time too.
   >Besides, why is it that just because he is an entertainer he is precluded
   >from having an opinion?

       The fact that he's an entertainer does *not* preclude him from having 
   opinions, but I'm curious whether you really believe that Rush's repetitive 
   and almost interminable Clinton-bashing constitutes "Entertainment" rather 
   than political commentary? If you would agree that it falls under the 
   category of political commentary and if you would agree that Rush is 
   focusing on Clinton more than ever, then would you also agree that the 
   purely entertainment-orriented aspects of Rush's show are giving way to 
   politics?

Of course it's political commentary, it's just not reporting, which is
what you objected to.  Political commentary can be very entertaining,
remember all the fun the ignoramuses had over potatoe?

   >  The fact is that he makes no bones about it.  He
   >is open and straightforward about it.  He makes no effort to hide is
   >positions.

       That's true, however it's beside the point. I wish I had a nickel for 
   every time I've heard a Dittohead telling somebody to lighten up because 
   Rush's show is just entertainment, and I wish I had a quarter for every 
   time that same Dittohead has turned around and told the next person coming 
   along that Rush's show is substantive and educational.

Not this dittohead.  I never said it was just entertainment.  It is
however, substantive and eductional.  Right this minute I hear him
explaining how the Clintonistas are saying the Slick did not promise to
raise middle class taxes, but only to not raise them to pay for his new
programs.  Wow, at this very minute we're getting a rerun of Count Taxula.

       You've said that Rush critics must be deaf if they can't figure out 
   the difference between those two positions, but IMHO the confusion arises 
   not from inattention but from actually listening to what Rush says from 
   moment to moment and then trying to reconcile that with what his defenders 
   in this group have said.

Again, I'm not saying they should "figure it out", I'm saying he says
over and over again that he in not an objective source.  He's quite clear
about that.  You'd have a point if he were sitting there pretending to be
an objective reporter like, say, Harrison Salisbury.

   >   >  He even goes so far as to say the purpose of taking calls is to
   >   >make him look good.  He's quite open about this, and anybody who doubts
   >   >it just plain isn't listening.

   >       Maybe they are simply listening more closely than you. None of my 
   >   problems with Rush have arisen from anything besides his exact words. I 
   >   think that perhaps you should join me in my scrutiny of those exact words 
   >   before you assume that I haven't been listening. Inconsistancies are there 
   >   if you bother to look for them.

   >Sure there are some inconsistencies.  They just don't happen to comprise
   >much of what he says.

       I'm not saying that they comprise that much of what he says either, 
   but I *would* say that one of the areas in which inconsistencies exist is 
   the claim that Rush's show is just entertainment. It's obvious to me that 
   Rush's view of his programs' purpose is evolving away from simple 
   entertainment and towards political commentary.

Again, it's always been political commentary.  He says he's an
entertainer.  He says the purpose of the show is entertainment.  Hell,
Mort Sahl was an "entertainer" whose entire routines were political
commentary.

   >  I hear him repeatedly saying he's there to make
   >money, be an entertainer, has an anti-liberal agenda and the purpose of
   >the calls is to make him look good.  I have never heard him claim to be
   >unbiased, or even fair.

       No, to be perfectly honest I've never heard him claim to be unbiased 
   or "fair", but I suppose that I just don't agree with the idea that the 
   increasingly politicized ranting and raving we've been hearing serves the 
   goal of being entertaining. My impression is that Rush's program is evolving 
   from a vehicle through which people find out how funny Rush is into a 
   vehicle through which people find what a staunch conservative he is. He 
   certainly fits both descriptions, but I watch/listen to entertainment 
   programs in order to be entertained, not to be lectured at.

Evolving?  It's always been there.  I think you're using a narrow
definition of "entertainment" that means a few yucks and a warm fuzzy
feeling.  By that standard Hamlet is not entertainment.  The word
entertain comes from the Latin, entrere, meaning "to hold".  That is the
audience's attention is held.  Rush certainly accomplishes that.
Xref: sparky talk.politics.misc:70417 alt.politics.homosexuality:10450