Contrary to popular belief (the less than a handful who personally know me that is) I never considered myself a die-hard fan of ultra right-wing conservative shock-jock Rush Limbaugh during the thirty plus years he was on the air. I admit, however, over the course of those three decades, listening to “the Doctor of Democracy” grew on me.
Before Limbaugh’s radio show premiered in August 1988, I don’t recall there being such words as “drive-by” media and “info babe” as he called the press and any female news anchor wearing six or seven-inch-heels and over-the-knee skirts on CNN and Fox News.
The word “liberal” didn’t sound like a cuss word as it does today, and there didn’t seem to be the “US versus Them” war that we now see out of control in the halls of congress, which I now refer to as “The House of Hypocrites” thanks to Republican Senator Marjorie Taylor Greene.
Years before I hesitantly enrolled in “The Limbaugh Institute for Advanced Conservative Studies” I despised the way, Tom Kelley, a friend of mine from high school, idolized “The Most Dangerous Man in America” back in 1993 as he bought two copies of Limbaugh’s book, "The Way Things Ought to Be."
I took immense joy mocking Tom as he browsed the tie section at a department store one time shopping for a “Rush Limbaugh” tie. Sitting next to those specially made ties were some clip-on ties so I told Tom he’d be much better off buying a couple clip-ons since "Cheers" (1982-1993) mailman Cliff Clavin (John Ratzenberger) swore by them.
When Limbaugh’s TV show aired during 1993-1994 seasons, another friend of mine and former newspaper editor, Glenn Fawcett, and I would die laughing at how everyone in the audience were impeccably dressed in suits and ties and the women were dressed in their Sunday church best during my 93' spring semester in college. Today, if I were to pull up any of those shows on youtube.com to see the camera pan in on the audience I just might see no minorities present, much the way liberals griped about that picture House Speaker Paul Ryan posed with a group of white interns in 2016 thus continuing the false narrative that conservative Republicans really are a bunch of rich white racists who don’t hire minority interns in “The House of Hypocrites.”
The more I tuned into Limbaugh’s radio show the more it dawned on me that some of the things he said made sense. I often quoted him in a few columns I wrote since the early 2000s on subjects from September 11 and Disney’s refusal to release ABC’s "The Path to 9/11" on DVD to help protect former President Bill Clinton’s legacy that he did try his damnedest to take out terrorist mastermind, Osama Bin Laden, while in office to Rush's love of Apple products. That doesn’t mean I took everything he said was the word of God. Sure, I admit I defended him over the past two decades with what he said but it was with good reason.
When Limbaugh, for example in 2003, said the only reason for Philadelphia Eagles quarterback Donovan McNabb’s success on the "Sunday NFL Countdown" in September 2003, was because he was African American, I saw nothing racist in that comment. Maybe I am just color blind. As someone, however, who hates football and most all sports, I would have watched "Sunday NFL Countdown" every week that year just to hear what Limbaugh had to say about the sport had he not been let go by ESPN executives within days of making that McNabb comment. I would have done the same had he been chosen to co-anchor "Monday Night Football." Not to watch the games, mind you. But so, I can hear what he had to say about the plays being called.
Nor did I agree with the comments Limbaugh made about Georgetown law school student, Sandra Fluke, in March 2012. There were plenty of ways “El Rushbo” could have used to describe Fluke and still get his point across without having to publicly degrade her. Nor did I agree with the way Limbaugh apologized to Fluke on his radio show as his advertisers bailed on him days after his Feb. 29, 2012 broadcast. Limbaugh back then should have taken a lesson from radio host Don Imus who met with the Rutgers University women’s basketball team personally apologizing to them for the derogatory comments he said on his radio show back in 2007. If Limbaugh was truly sincere in his apology to Fluke, he would have called her personally.
“My good friends, the liberal galactic media is at it again, they never stop. Now they're trying to convince us that Hoth is melting. Well that's crazy, just trying to scare us. Well if that wasn't enough to get you mad, we now have news that Lando Calrissian has been made the chief administrator of the Bespin mining facility. Gee, I wonder how he got that job. Well let me tell you how he got that job, affirmative action strikes again. The time is 8:50.”
I don’t doubt the hypocritical left-wing elitists cheered with glee seeing Limbaugh meet the same fate as Jabba the Hutt’s pet creature, The Rancor, from "Return of the Jedi" in the 2011 "Family Guy" episode called, “It’s A Trap.”
Before Limbaugh’s radio show premiered in August 1988, I don’t recall there being such words as “drive-by” media and “info babe” as he called the press and any female news anchor wearing six or seven-inch-heels and over-the-knee skirts on CNN and Fox News.
The word “liberal” didn’t sound like a cuss word as it does today, and there didn’t seem to be the “US versus Them” war that we now see out of control in the halls of congress, which I now refer to as “The House of Hypocrites” thanks to Republican Senator Marjorie Taylor Greene.
Years before I hesitantly enrolled in “The Limbaugh Institute for Advanced Conservative Studies” I despised the way, Tom Kelley, a friend of mine from high school, idolized “The Most Dangerous Man in America” back in 1993 as he bought two copies of Limbaugh’s book, "The Way Things Ought to Be."
I took immense joy mocking Tom as he browsed the tie section at a department store one time shopping for a “Rush Limbaugh” tie. Sitting next to those specially made ties were some clip-on ties so I told Tom he’d be much better off buying a couple clip-ons since "Cheers" (1982-1993) mailman Cliff Clavin (John Ratzenberger) swore by them.
When Limbaugh’s TV show aired during 1993-1994 seasons, another friend of mine and former newspaper editor, Glenn Fawcett, and I would die laughing at how everyone in the audience were impeccably dressed in suits and ties and the women were dressed in their Sunday church best during my 93' spring semester in college. Today, if I were to pull up any of those shows on youtube.com to see the camera pan in on the audience I just might see no minorities present, much the way liberals griped about that picture House Speaker Paul Ryan posed with a group of white interns in 2016 thus continuing the false narrative that conservative Republicans really are a bunch of rich white racists who don’t hire minority interns in “The House of Hypocrites.”
As the years went by, however, my political affiliations changed. Perhaps it was the fact being raised by my grandparents on my dad's side who were staunch Republicans that maybe their conservatism got the better of me.Maybe it was the fact, like George Clooney’s Democratic manager Ryan Gosling played in the "Ides of March" (2011) who realized there was no such thing as honesty, integrity and morality in presidential politicians, I stopped believing in everything the Democratic Party claimed to represent when it came to them fighting for minorities and low-income wage earners.
The more I tuned into Limbaugh’s radio show the more it dawned on me that some of the things he said made sense. I often quoted him in a few columns I wrote since the early 2000s on subjects from September 11 and Disney’s refusal to release ABC’s "The Path to 9/11" on DVD to help protect former President Bill Clinton’s legacy that he did try his damnedest to take out terrorist mastermind, Osama Bin Laden, while in office to Rush's love of Apple products. That doesn’t mean I took everything he said was the word of God. Sure, I admit I defended him over the past two decades with what he said but it was with good reason.
When Limbaugh, for example in 2003, said the only reason for Philadelphia Eagles quarterback Donovan McNabb’s success on the "Sunday NFL Countdown" in September 2003, was because he was African American, I saw nothing racist in that comment. Maybe I am just color blind. As someone, however, who hates football and most all sports, I would have watched "Sunday NFL Countdown" every week that year just to hear what Limbaugh had to say about the sport had he not been let go by ESPN executives within days of making that McNabb comment. I would have done the same had he been chosen to co-anchor "Monday Night Football." Not to watch the games, mind you. But so, I can hear what he had to say about the plays being called.
Nor did I agree with the comments Limbaugh made about Georgetown law school student, Sandra Fluke, in March 2012. There were plenty of ways “El Rushbo” could have used to describe Fluke and still get his point across without having to publicly degrade her. Nor did I agree with the way Limbaugh apologized to Fluke on his radio show as his advertisers bailed on him days after his Feb. 29, 2012 broadcast. Limbaugh back then should have taken a lesson from radio host Don Imus who met with the Rutgers University women’s basketball team personally apologizing to them for the derogatory comments he said on his radio show back in 2007. If Limbaugh was truly sincere in his apology to Fluke, he would have called her personally.
There is a difference though in my listening to Rush than the way others did. I listened to him because he was entertaining from those promotional radio phrases (“The man, a mission, a way of life”, “He didn’t start it, but he’ll be happy to finish it”) to those often times humorous song parodies from conservative political satirist Paul Shanklin that bashed President Obama and liberalism that often aired on his show.Limbaugh wasn’t afraid to mock himself when "Family Guy" creator Seth McFarlane asked him to do an animated episode in 2014 where the conservative host arrives in town and temporarily converts liberal dog, Brian, into a Republican. I died laughing when Limbaugh poked fun at himself again for the 2010 episode of "Family Guy" called “Blue Harvest” in what was a parody of the Star Wars trilogy (1977-1983). What a joy it was to hear El Rushbo’s voice on the landspeeder radio from that “galaxy far, far away” talking up global warming and affirmative action on Tatooine.
“My good friends, the liberal galactic media is at it again, they never stop. Now they're trying to convince us that Hoth is melting. Well that's crazy, just trying to scare us. Well if that wasn't enough to get you mad, we now have news that Lando Calrissian has been made the chief administrator of the Bespin mining facility. Gee, I wonder how he got that job. Well let me tell you how he got that job, affirmative action strikes again. The time is 8:50.”
I don’t doubt the hypocritical left-wing elitists cheered with glee seeing Limbaugh meet the same fate as Jabba the Hutt’s pet creature, The Rancor, from "Return of the Jedi" in the 2011 "Family Guy" episode called, “It’s A Trap.”
I didn’t listen to Limbaugh’s December 23, 2020 radio broadcast the day before Christmas. Had I done so I still wouldn’t have seen it as being a final goodbye to his long-time 15 million listeners despite his announcement in October last year that his stage IV lung cancer was terminal.
Instead of dwelling on the inevitable, I preferred to focus on the positive though I knew otherwise. The end came the morning of Feb. 17, 2021 with the announcement from Limbaugh’s wife, Kathryn, on his radio show that “America’s Real Anchorman” had passed away at age 70.
Even now hearing Limbaugh’s comments from that Dec. 23 broadcast being replayed on Fox News I’m still having a hard time processing it.
How strange it will be now whenever some daily political newsworthy event happens there will be no one at that golden EIB microphone to answer the question millions of devoted fans asked “The Mayor of Realville” five days a week for over the past three decades.
“What would Rush say?”
©2/24/21
Instead of dwelling on the inevitable, I preferred to focus on the positive though I knew otherwise. The end came the morning of Feb. 17, 2021 with the announcement from Limbaugh’s wife, Kathryn, on his radio show that “America’s Real Anchorman” had passed away at age 70.
Even now hearing Limbaugh’s comments from that Dec. 23 broadcast being replayed on Fox News I’m still having a hard time processing it.
How strange it will be now whenever some daily political newsworthy event happens there will be no one at that golden EIB microphone to answer the question millions of devoted fans asked “The Mayor of Realville” five days a week for over the past three decades.
“What would Rush say?”
©2/24/21
No comments:
Post a Comment