There is certainly one compliment I have to pay Rush Limbaugh, whose body assumed room temperature today.
Isn’t that a little harsh?
Actually, that was a phrase he minted about 30 years ago to use when people died. So using it for him is actually an homage, and I would be willing to bet he would appreciate it.
Limbaugh was on the air for more than 32 years before he announced he had Stage IV lung cancer.
A friend of mine tried praying for him once, saying that he wished God could spare Rush and that if he had to take someone, he should take Sean Hannity.
But in reality, Limbaugh is dead. Some will call it the end of an era, while others might run out Jerry Ford’s old line and say our long national nightmare is over.
Many people will mourn him, but many others will remember the times he went far beyond the pale. There was the time in the early ’90s, when on his short-lived TV show he called 13-year-old Chelsea Clinton the “White House dog.” And the time he told an African-American caller to “get that bone out of your nose and call me back.”
He was particularly insidious in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina when he referred to the African-American mayor of New Orleans, Ray Naygin, as “Mayor Nay-ger.”
He was the male Oprah in one respect, although not one to be proud of. I’m not sure there was anyone in recent years whose weight roller-coastered, except for maybe Kirstie Alley. He went from a reasonable weight up to nearly 400 pounds and back down again.
I would imagine the term of his that will live in the most infamy is coining the word “feminazi” to define feminists, and of course he said feminism was nothing more than a way for unattractive women to have social lives.
In addition to minorities and women, he was particularly vicious toward gays and lesbians. There was always something a little odd about that, and there was a great deal of speculation about him. Nothing was ever proven, though, and a guy about 20 years back who claimed to have been Rush’s lover got an awful lot of facts wrong.
He may have been the most successful radio talker since Father Charles Coughlin in the 1930s. Limbaugh claimed 20 million listeners weekly at his peak, but Coughlin drew 30 million to his once-weekly broadcasts in a country with less than half as many people.
Of course, radio ruled in those days. By the late ’80s, when Limbaugh started his national show, AM radio was dying out. There are enough popular hosts now — particularly on the right — that the format will continue.
There will probably never be another Limbaugh, though, and you’ll certainly get differing opinions on whether that’s a tragedy or a blessing.
He was certainly successful. He leaves an estate reported to be more than $600 million, and there are many people who believe that without Rush, Donald Trump would never have been elected. Trump called in to Fox News Wednesday to do a sort of eulogy, but with him, it’s always about him.
After a couple of sentences, he started talking about the stolen election. He said that Rush agreed with him that he had really won the election.
Oh well.
Before I close, I did promise to pay Rush a compliment.
He was a famous Missourian, from the other end of the state as Harry Truman and Mark Twain. I’m reminded of Twain when I heard this about Rush. Someone from his hometown of Cape Girardeau had memories of Rush as a schoolboy.
“When he was in the third grade,” the man said. “He was really a good speller.”