Yet as he discarded the entertainer disclaimer, he kept up his old distance from the truth. He admonition to speak no ill of the dead is waived in the case of those whose legacy includes serious public harm.īut as ego swelled with his wealth, girth and marriages (the wife who announced his passing from his microphone was his fourth), Limbaugh found just “an entertainer” unsatisfyingly limited.īy Barack Obama’s presidency, he was rapturously greeted at conservative confabs as a philosopher of the right, waxing definitionally about the movement’s meaning. Yet at least it put a patina of realistic humility on his social role. I remember a New York Times interview in the 1990s that noted how Limbaugh tugged the reporter’s recorder close to him to make sure it caught his words that he was just “an entertainer.” Sure, the self-description was self-serving: absolution for abdicating truth, by a man who’d plugged the conspiracy theory about the Clintons as murders. Unfortunately, the trajectory of his career arced from entertainment revolutionary to Donald Trump’s sock puppet, the Father Coughlin of 21st-century racism, fascism and sewer-level discourse.Īt first, he kept a smidgeon of perspective.

If all El Rushbo had done was entertain adoring “dittoheads” and some outrage-enjoying liberals, with taunts of “feminazis” and animal lovers (playing “Born Free” to the sound of gunfire and squawking wildlife), he’d be remembered as controversial but innocuous. That I can listen to their show - and a massive menu of on-air gabbers - owes in no small part to Limbaugh, who busted the bronco of Reagan and Clinton-era conservatism to become a pioneering host of national, political radio.īut the admonition to speak no ill of the dead is waived in the case of those whose legacy includes serious public harm. Recalling Limbaugh’s mantra that he had “talent on loan from God,” they noted that the almighty had called in the loan. I listen to some talk radio hosts who indulged a bit of black humor on the news of Rush Limbaugh’s death. Facebook Email Radio talk show host and conservative commentator Rush Limbaugh speaks at 'An Evenining With Rush Limbaugh' event in Novi, Michigan.

Rush limbo dead