Will Media Complain: Too Much Clinton?

RUSH: I have learned that the media has been asked that, as they cover the arrival ceremony at Point Mugu of the Reagan family that, there be no commentary offered of the ceremony, just live audio of what takes place -- and if that's the case and if there's a direct live audio feed, we'll take it. We'll JIP it as it happens, and along these lines let me tell you what's going to happen on Friday. As you know, the funeral will take place at the Washington National Cathedral. This program will start a half hour early on Friday. It will be on the website, and if any of our affiliate stations wish to join early they may, and we'll do the funeral. We're going to broadcast the funeral ceremony here, the funeral service, and I'm going to be anchor of our coverage here on the radio. Decided to do this, frankly, my friends, so that it gets done right somewhere, because I don't know if you've noticed it. Well, I'm sure you've noticed it.

The media is starting to say they think there's "too much coverage," here. Dan Rather and Tom Brokaw both have spoken publicly and say we think we're overdoing this; we're getting a little excessive here in the coverage of the Reagan week, the Reagan funeral. This didn't stop them during the death of Princess Diana. Do you remember anybody suggesting that there was too much coverage during that? I did. No, I didn't suggest there was too much coverage. I didn't do that, but I did question some of the things that happened, just from a human standpoint, and I concluded it was, you know, all these people showing up playing flowers just wanting to get in on the act, you know, wanting to be on TV, wanting to be part of a huge event. But in addition to the Princess Diana coverage that nobody thought was "excessive," can you remember ever, ladies and gentlemen, when a book that's not even out yet has received so much coverage? And I speak, of course, of the upcoming autobiography of "My Life" by William Jefferson Clinton.

We already have two weeks of coverage of a yet-to-be released Bill Clinton book. It's going to be followed with several weeks of hype surrounding its release on June 22nd, including -- get this -- a full hour of airtime on 60 Minutes. They are going to devote the whole show to Clinton, the whole 60 Minutes episode in which Clinton will be interviewed by one of the anchors who is complaining about the Reagan coverage, and that would be Dan Rather. I did a little research today. I did Nexis research, and I just used the following search terms: "Bill Clinton" or "President Clinton," and "My Life" or "book" or "memoirs." I went to the Nexis database. I wanted to find out just how much coverage there's been of a book that's not even out yet; One thousand fifty-eight hits between May the 6th and June the 9th, today, and there was more coverage even prior to that, and I've got the list of all the places that the 1,058 hits came from.The Washington Post today also has a story headlined, "Clinton Publisher's Campaign Strategy."

I see the hearse, the president's hearse is arriving at Point Mugu, so we'll monitor the situation there and when something happens ceremonial we'll JIP it. "Here's the plan: On June 18th, Infinity Broadcasting will begin playing excerpts from an abridged audio version of Bill Clinton's book. Over the next five days, Knopf plans to release one excerpt a day to Infinity Broadcasting. Those sound snippets in the unmistakable drawl of Bill Clinton will be incorporated into news shows across the nation. There are 185 Infinity stations." They're going to take Clinton's audio book, and they're going to play excerpts of it as though it's a news story on Infinity radio stations. "On June 20th, 60 Minutes will dedicate the entire show to Bill Clinton. Dan Rather will interview him in Arkansas and in New York. On June 21st, Clinton will tape an hour-long conversation with Oprah Winfrey to be broadcast the next day. On that day, which is publication day, Clinton will make his first appearance in stores to sign the books. The Today Show, Good Morning America, will broadcast interviews on June 23rd."

Clinton will be signing books all over the place. It's fine. I'm not being critical here. I'm a little bit (laughing) amused by it all. See, here's the difference, my friends. These people on the Clinton side have to bust their tails to get a legacy written for this guy because his administration, his presidency does not provide it. The only legacy... You know, you're talking about flags flying at half staff? (pause) Well, I'm not going to say it. No, I'm just thinking, I'm just thinking of what would fly at half staff to honor the Clinton presidency. It would be a blue dress with a stain on it. Okay, so, that's what they're fighting. That's their legacy, and they're doing everything they can to rewrite it so that that's not what people think of. Even Walter Cronkite on Larry King Alive last night or two nights ago went in and did an interview, talking about an interview with Reagan that he did, and he had to mention the little Oval Office private study where "a previous president, a recent president, of course, has made very famous," Cronkite said.

So this is what's frustrating to the left. There's no need to rewrite a Reagan legacy. It's spread out before our very eyes just based on the character of the man. The Clinton team is having to go, you know, pedal-to-the-metal here to try to rewrite history and create a legacy, but the real point is, all this complaining about the coverage of one of the greatest presidents ever and certainly of this century. The greatest president -- not the second best, not one of the two best -- the greatest president of this century. This is only proper and fitting for a nation to do this, and it's happening because of its own inertia. It is not manufactured. This is not created. This is not "stagecraft" here. It's happening because of the will of the American people. This other stuff with Clinton is all manufactured and staged and it's going to be an orgy. And we'll just see if there's any complaints about "too much Clinton coverage" on his book in the midst of all of it.

I want to start over. I want to start at the top of this hour with a different story that relates to -- you've all heard that Dan Rather and Tom Brokaw think that they were covering this (death of the 20th Century's greatest president) way too much, the networks were spending way too much time on this, and, of course, what is a 24/7 cable network supposed to do? I mean, that's one of the things you get when you've got 24/7 cable networks. I mean, there's not all that much news that happens 24/7 unless you keep repeating and speculating on it. For example, the other day, when Tenet resigned, that's 15 seconds worth of news. "George Tenet resigned the today, citing personal reasons. President Bush accepted." Anything beyond that is, "Here's what we don't know. This is what we think. This is what we hope. We're going to spend the next six hours on it," and that's what they did. They spent six hours on the resignation of Tenet! Here is the death of the greatest president in this or last century -- and this is not the result of anybody's spin.

What's happening here is not because of anybody's marketing or "packaging." What's happening here is the result of the wishes and the desires of American people. The American people are driving this coverage. It wouldn't be on if people didn't want to see it. It's that plain and simple. Of course, they didn't complain, did they, about the length of the coverage of the death of Princess Diana, and again, ladies and gentlemen, let me just remind you of this. The coverage that a book not even released yet has gotten sets a record and establishes a precedent. We already have two weeks of coverage of a yet-to-be-released book by Bill Clinton, which will be followed by several additional weeks of hype upon hype upon hype surrounding its release on June 22nd. 60 Minutes has devoted the full hour to Bill Clinton with Dan Rather -- who, by the way, is one of the anchors complaining about the excessive coverage of the Reagan funeral and its surrounding ceremonies. Then we have this, from the Washington Post today:

"Clinton Publisher's Campaign Strategy." That's the headline, story by Linton Weeks. "Clinton Publisher's Campaign Strategy." "The marketing masterminds at Alfred A. Knopf are doing everything in their power to orchestrate the publication of 'My [Lie]' by Bill Clinton. It's a big-time book by a big-time public figure," it says here, "and the publishing firm, a division of Random House, wants to get maximum bada-bang for its book. 'You want to whet people's appetite,' said Paul Bogards, the Knopf spokesman. The official publication date is June 22nd, and the promotional crusade, which began last week when Clinton addressed the American Booksellers Association will intensify as the publication date approaches" What is this "he promotional crusade began last week"? It's been going on for three weeks. I did a Nexis search; we did a Nexis search, May 26 to now, to June 9th, and we used search terms, "Bill Clinton and his book;" "Bill Clinton, My Life," whatever it was, 1,058 hits -- 1,058 different, unduplicated, and this is print media alone hits on the Bill Clinton book.

We're still getting wall-to-wall coverage of the Abu (Algore pronunciation) Grab prison scandal. That went on at least a week. We got a week of Abu Grab. We had months of anti-war demonstrators before the war, and yet this is "too excessive"? This is not excessive at all. This is a genuine event. Those other things are manufactured by their own admission. The "marketing masterminds at Alfred Knopf" are manufacturing news. They are manufacturing a strategy to get coverage, and they shouldn't have to work this hard. The media is going to, you know, be slobbering all over themselves to cover this book whether Knopf does anything or not. Right? Am I right? I'm right. Yet they're manufacturing news here. The prisoner photos? A manufactured story. I mean, it was a genuine story, pictures came out, but it contempt going on and on and on and finally there was a poll, 62% of the American people thought it was overdone. They agreed with me. You agreed with me.

But listen to this from the Clinton publisher's campaign strategy in the Washington Post. "Here's the plan: on June 18th [nine days from today] Infinity Broadcasting, will begin playing excerpts from an abridged audio version of the book read by Clinton. Over the next five days, June 18th through 23rd, Knopf plans to release one excerpt a day to Infinity Broadcasting. Those sound snippets in the unmistakable drawl of the former president will be incorporated into news [stress added] shows across the nation, said Karen Mateo, who works for Infinity. They have 185 stations." So they're going to take an audio book. They're going to give intercept its of the audio book to this network and this network is going to insert intercept its of Clinton reading his own book and they're going to call it "news." The audio bites will also be available over the Internet through America Online. Going to be able to download. If you can't hear an Infinity station anywhere, you will be able to download this news from the Clinton book.

"On June 20th CBS 60 Minutes will dedicate the entire show Clinton. The network's news anchor Dan Rather will conduct the interview." He's one of the two anchors has gone public saying that the coverage of the Reagan funeral is excessive. "The next day on June 21st Clintons will take an hour-long conversation with Oprah that will be broadcast the next day. On that day, publication day June 22, Clinton will make his first appearance in stores sign books." It goes on and on and on about how many books they've printed and where he's going to be interviewed, and Clinton's handlers don't know when he'll come to Washington to sign books, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. So at any rate, this is just sour grapes all these people complaining about coverage. Excessive? They don't want to see it themselves. The people bringing it to us do not want to see it because it's rocking their worldview. This is slap in the face, folks. They've done their best to rewrite the history of the 80s and they failed and proof of this is right in front of their faces through their own cameras. (Gasp!)

From the Chicago Tribune today, Steve Johnson, the Tribune news critic: "Networks Fear Burnout of Wall-to-Wall Story -- From the time his casket is felony east today to his national funeral on Friday Ronald Reagan will dominate TV screens to almost the same degree that he did when he was president," and that's what bugs them. (Laughing) "The first state funeral since LBJ three decades ago will be both a reminder of TV's power to unite the nation in ceremony and a test of how strongly the nation still clings to its civic rituals." Dream on, Mr. Johnson. This is more than "cling(ing) to a civic ritual." Let's see. "Full day ratings for the leading cable news channels have been up 20 to 30% since Reagan died, but some shapers of television coverage worry that by Friday the tendency to go wall-to-wall with big stories will cause a burnout factor." That happened during O.J. How about that as an example of excessive coverage? How about O.J., did they ever worry about it during O.J.? Well, the soap on opera people and those getting canceled worried about it. So the ratings are up, 20-to-30%. That's their business, and they're upset! It is their business! I don't care what these news people tell you, "We don't care about the ratings. We are performing a service. We don't care about the bottom line, not at all. We can't be bothered and burdened with such minuscule concerns. Bottom line profit? To hell with that! No. We have to get the news out. People have the right to know," blah, blah, blah, blah. So more people than usual are watching, and so these executives are worried. (Laughing) It's so obvious why they're worried. It's because more people are watching this than watch the prison photo abuse scandal. More people watch this than watch Bill Clinton leaving office. More people watch this than practically anything else recent. Certainly the 9/11 commission hearings didn't get this kind of coverage. That is what bothers them. "Jim Murphy, who is the executive producer of the CBS Evening News, said, 'It's a moment of national unity that's always played an important part in our history. At the same time,' he said. 'I do know a lot of people think that they saw too much stuff over a few days so they probably will think that they don't need to see the live events.'"

Who, Mr. Murphy? Who are these people? You "know a lot of people." Do you know everybody in your audience? See, this is what happens. These guys go to their cocktail parties and their other liberal buddies say, "Gosh, you've got to get off of this. You've driving me nuts," and so they want to stay in good graces with their cocktail buddies, fellow libs. So they go back and they start wringing their hands. "Oh, jeez, I'm becoming a... They're going to think I'm.. I'm... I'm failing the cause," or some such thing. I know a lot of people think they saw too much. It's like, remember that Pauline Kael quote back in the New Yorker, back when Nixon -- I don't know how -- she's a big New York literary giant. "I don't know how Nixon won; I don't know anybody who voted for him." This Murphy guy doesn't know anybody who wants to watch his own network whose numbers are up, and if he says, "People probably will think they don't need to see the live events," fine; they don't have to. You know, just because you cover something doesn't mean people are automatically going to watch it. In this case they are. So that's where we are in the coverage. The LA Times today in their farewell to a president segment." Oh, how touching! "For Some, Unpleasant Memories -- Blacks, gays, remember Reagan with bitterness, saying he neglected the poor and lacked leadership as the AIDS epidemic exploded," and they quote such a veneered, revered source as a barber, saying Reagan's legacy being "made up of crazy people." A barber is who they found to offer this quote.

I guess it's time to get back to the blackout of any news positive regarding anything to do with the GOP or Republicans, and get back to spinning for the dimwit Kerry, distorting every story out of Iraq, and flogging the Abu Ghraib incidents ad infinitum, ad nauseam.

You are so right! It is not so much Bill and/or his book.
It is the Clinton name. Remember the rats still have to
select a VP!
BTW, wasn't there a Clinton daughter?

Hey, Clinton is over-exposed. This man didn't give a whit as to whether he had his pants on or not while putting his ample arse in the oval office. He didn't care if his wife was cheated on all throughout his marriage, even to this day.

Just wait until his book comes out and we are forced to have to listen to all the bullcrapish adoration spewing from the mouths of Clinton kool-aid slurpers and knee-padded media lusting slaves.

I'm just so very thankful, that America has had the opportunity to see class (President Reagan and President Bush) vs. crass (Clinton and Clinton).

Thank God, America gets a chance to see a loving Presidential couple as compared to the dysfunction of the Clinton marriage.

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