The Greatest of All Time has passed
- Thread starter Joe Fan
- Start date
One day Rush let Chrissy Hynde of The Pretenders on his show for a few hours. She talked about the advantages of a vegetarian diet, her vegetarian diner, and how bad meat was. She took calls from callers and answered questions. Rush was very respectful towards her. I think this was part of a deal that allowed Rush to keep using Chrissy’s song “Back to Ohio” on his show. They engaged in some mutually respectful debate—you know, the sort we need to get back to.
A nice solution—well executed.
A nice solution—well executed.
Her father was a big Rush Limbaugh fan and it was her gift to her Dad.
So I've pondered Rush's death without really commenting, because I wanted to give it some thought. Rush was the biggest driver of my political beliefs and interest as a teenager and young adult. In 1991, my dad and I joined my grandparents on a road trip to the Naval Aviation Museum in Pensacola, Florida. (My granddad was a Navy pilot from 1939 until about 1960, so he was very knowledgeable and had flown most of the planes in there.) Anyway, they turned on Rush in the car, and I was hooked from that day forward. I started watching his TV show and listened to him on the radio until I started practicing law and couldn't really work in his show around my schedule. I also read his books.
He's being spun as bombastic and provocative. He was all of those things, and he was funny. Those things appealed to me. However, the real impact is that he was a strong communicator and persuader of conservative principles to those who actually listened consistently. He wasn't an intellectual but had great admiration and respect for conservative intellectuals like Buckley, Walter Williams, Thomas Sowell, Milton Friedman, and many others. (His impersonation of Buckley was hilarious.) He took their message and made it understandable to normal people. He also revered the Founding Fathers and communicated their message. I don't know if he kept that style going after I stopped listening in 2002, but he definitely did in the 1990s.
Rush also gave conservatives arguments that they could use to counter media narratives. For example, in 1992 when the entire political media was blaming the tax cuts of the '80s for the deficits, he was the one who pointed out that revenue increased during that time. He actually looked at numbers while they just spouted a horse **** talking point in contradiction of the evidence. He pulled out numbers and data that showed how ineffective the War on Poverty had been and how damaging it had been.
He was the big force that showed people just how partisan and biased the political media actually was. He illustrated the double standards and explained why they existed. This is the real reason the media doesn't like him today.
Was he a bigot like he's being relentlessly spun after his death? According to black, liberal columnist William Raspberry who actually decided to listen to him and learn what he says and does in context, no. If you haven't read it, read Raspberry's article. Obviously, I have wild disagreement with him on politics, but I can't imagine a columnist today having that degree of humility and character. He admitted he was wrong about something when he didn't have to and when it probably gave him nothing but scorn from his colleagues. It's also well-written. Most columnists today of any political persuasion just aren't anywhere near that good at what they do. Not only are most of them tasteless, partisan hacks with no character, they're **** at their jobs. They're poor writers.
Limbaugh obviously had a huge impact on political media. He saved what was a dying medium (AM radio), and countless other hosts have followed his footsteps. Some of them have been good. Many have been bad. Some of have been terrible. Limbaugh wasn't the first conservative political commentator. Many worked for media outlets before, but he was the first one who could reach a mass audience and didn't operate at the behest and pleasure of left-leaning superiors. Fox News probably wouldn't exist without Limbaugh. In other words, he busted the liberal oligopoly on political media.
Limbaugh also was the first big target of cancel culture. David Brock launched Media Matters (which was a Clinton-oriented enterprise) largely to screw with Limbaugh's sponsors. They really feared him. Sometimes it worked. Most of the time it didn't. Unfortunately, that has metastasized into something truly terrible.
Do I condone everything Limbaugh said or did? Definitely not. He wasn't a shock-jock (though he was often dismissed as such), but there was definitely some shock-jock in him. And sometimes he went too far. He even admitted that at times. He had major problems in his personal life. He went through four wives and had a serious drug problem (which was likely a reason why his third marriage failed). I don't like all the impacts he had on political media. He didn't cause political polarization (though he's blamed for it). It would have happened without him, but he was a factor and definitely didn't help it. However, at least from 1991 - 2002 when I listened to him, he was overwhelmingly a force for good. Overall, he was flawed, fallen man but who did some really great things and who can be proud of his life.
Rest in Peace.
He's being spun as bombastic and provocative. He was all of those things, and he was funny. Those things appealed to me. However, the real impact is that he was a strong communicator and persuader of conservative principles to those who actually listened consistently. He wasn't an intellectual but had great admiration and respect for conservative intellectuals like Buckley, Walter Williams, Thomas Sowell, Milton Friedman, and many others. (His impersonation of Buckley was hilarious.) He took their message and made it understandable to normal people. He also revered the Founding Fathers and communicated their message. I don't know if he kept that style going after I stopped listening in 2002, but he definitely did in the 1990s.
Rush also gave conservatives arguments that they could use to counter media narratives. For example, in 1992 when the entire political media was blaming the tax cuts of the '80s for the deficits, he was the one who pointed out that revenue increased during that time. He actually looked at numbers while they just spouted a horse **** talking point in contradiction of the evidence. He pulled out numbers and data that showed how ineffective the War on Poverty had been and how damaging it had been.
He was the big force that showed people just how partisan and biased the political media actually was. He illustrated the double standards and explained why they existed. This is the real reason the media doesn't like him today.
Was he a bigot like he's being relentlessly spun after his death? According to black, liberal columnist William Raspberry who actually decided to listen to him and learn what he says and does in context, no. If you haven't read it, read Raspberry's article. Obviously, I have wild disagreement with him on politics, but I can't imagine a columnist today having that degree of humility and character. He admitted he was wrong about something when he didn't have to and when it probably gave him nothing but scorn from his colleagues. It's also well-written. Most columnists today of any political persuasion just aren't anywhere near that good at what they do. Not only are most of them tasteless, partisan hacks with no character, they're **** at their jobs. They're poor writers.
Limbaugh obviously had a huge impact on political media. He saved what was a dying medium (AM radio), and countless other hosts have followed his footsteps. Some of them have been good. Many have been bad. Some of have been terrible. Limbaugh wasn't the first conservative political commentator. Many worked for media outlets before, but he was the first one who could reach a mass audience and didn't operate at the behest and pleasure of left-leaning superiors. Fox News probably wouldn't exist without Limbaugh. In other words, he busted the liberal oligopoly on political media.
Limbaugh also was the first big target of cancel culture. David Brock launched Media Matters (which was a Clinton-oriented enterprise) largely to screw with Limbaugh's sponsors. They really feared him. Sometimes it worked. Most of the time it didn't. Unfortunately, that has metastasized into something truly terrible.
Do I condone everything Limbaugh said or did? Definitely not. He wasn't a shock-jock (though he was often dismissed as such), but there was definitely some shock-jock in him. And sometimes he went too far. He even admitted that at times. He had major problems in his personal life. He went through four wives and had a serious drug problem (which was likely a reason why his third marriage failed). I don't like all the impacts he had on political media. He didn't cause political polarization (though he's blamed for it). It would have happened without him, but he was a factor and definitely didn't help it. However, at least from 1991 - 2002 when I listened to him, he was overwhelmingly a force for good. Overall, he was flawed, fallen man but who did some really great things and who can be proud of his life.
Rest in Peace.
I was fascinated with him in the 1990's. He opened my eyes up about media bias. And Liberalism. But he became too one-sided for me. So I stopped listening. I might have listened to him ten times in the past twenty years, all on road trips to South Texas and I was surfing AM radio
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