Without commenting on the overall merits of this David Frum post, this struck me:
I think Rush is a great entertainer and has often been a force for good in the conservative movement. But right now, he is feeding his audience pleasing illusions that can only lead conservatives to even greater troubles in the days ahead.
Why does Frum feel the need to denigrate Rush as merely an “entertainer”? McCain did this a while back, and I remember being cranky about it at the time.
But why shouldn’t I refer to Frum as an entertainer? There’s a tremendous bias among writers that writing is somehow a superior, more intellectual form of communication than others. But how many people read thoughtful things that bore them? It’s been a while since Aristotle or Heidegger produced a best seller. A writer, even if he is of the serious sort, absolutely must entertain. But it would seem odd if I referred to Frum as an entertainer, no? That’s a word reserved for non-writing boobs like Rush (though Rush’s monologues have been turned into two books that sold monstrously better than anything Frum has produced).
If the phrase “public intellectual” has any meaning, it absolutely must include Rush Limbaugh. For fifteen hours a week, he engages in reasoned discourse over the news of the day, very frequently getting into serious points of political philosophy and history. Compared to the hollow poll-following “who-has-momentum-today” level of print and television journalism, Rush does much to elevate the level of discourse above where it would be if left to the supposed serious journalists. You can watch an entire month’s worth of Sunday-morning programs without learning as much as Rush delivers in a day, and without laughing as much as Rush’s listeners do in ten minutes. I imagine it really grates on certain people that this country bumpkin college drop out prompts more thought than every Ivy Leaguer and J-school grad on television or in newspapers.
So Frum can look down his nose at Rush the Entertainer all he wants. But there is not a more important public intellectual in America today, and he’s done more to preserve and advance the conservative movement than anyone presently at National Review.
Posted by Apollo in Amer-I-Can!, Conservatism, Journalism