Oddly enough, I don’t really think Rush meant to have that effect or be taken as seriously as he was. Very often, he talks off the top of his head. But once he’s said something, rather than modfiying it when it turns out to be not exactly what he meant, he digs in deeper.
But heck, he’s an entertainer, and that’s what an entertainer does. The problem is that people see him as more than that, and sometimes I’m not sure he acknowledges that.
You make an important point here.
While many consider Rush to be—on a basic level—an ideological guru who presents his ideas in a way that is highly entertaining, the truth is Rush is more fundamentally an entertainer who makes use of conservative ideas for his performance.
The ugly part of this is that what Rush claims are his first principles—those of American conservatism—are in fact second in importance to his agenda as an entertainer.
So in a very basic sense, Rush is no different from Bill Maher or Rosie O’Donnell.
I know this has been acknowledged for a long time, at times by posters on this forum, and in my denial I have argued against them. Today I plead guilty to the crime of holding on to my ignorance for too long.