Hertzberg

According to Hendrik Hertzberg, Zev Chafets' profile of Rush Limbaugh in last Sunday's New York Times Magazine "is an object lesson in the temptations and perils of 'access.'”

Readers of the Times are already aware that Limbaugh is a very successful “conservative” radio talker. Many of those readers, no doubt, have listened to snatches of his program on their way across the dial to NPR or music. But very few, it seems safe to surmise, are regular listeners, and even fewer are “dittoheads.” What does Limbaugh actually say on the radio? What are his arguments? Are the facts he uses to support them factual? Does he speak truth to power, or (as Al Franken and Media Matters have exhaustively demonstrated) does he speak untruth on behalf of power?

For a magazine profile writer, there are times when “access” is worth having, maybe even worth trading a little puffery for. If, say, the subject is a reclusive movie actor known to the public only as a succession of characters on the screen, then “access” may be the only way to find out what he or she is “really like.” But no writer needs Rush Limbaugh’s coöperation in order to have access to what’s important and interesting about him. The access is there for the taking, in the form of thousands of hours of broadcast monologues. Some attention to those might have made the Limbaugh profile a little more worthy of the newspaper that published it.

And while you're at it, check out Hertzberg's response to Rhode Island Governor Donald Carcieri's rejection of the National Popular Vote plan, which enjoyed overwhelming popularity in his state. Hertzberg long ago convinced me of the plan. It's simpler, fairer, just obviously better than the Electoral College. None of the arguments against it (I remember one from George Will, but I can't find it) measure up.