Posted on 10/30/2003 9:44:33 AM PST by billorites
Look, I am a longtime listener of Rush Limbaugh because I'm a fan of AM radio. I've listened to radio since childhood. I was in anguish for a week over what was happening to Rush. It began with the flap over his remarks about our Philadelphia Eagles quarterback Donovan McNabb being "overrated" because he's black -- an ill-advised intrusion of racial controversy into a tightly scripted jock show that wasn't the right forum for political debate. Then within days, news broke of the National Enquirer's cover story on Rush's abuse of prescription pain medication. The news stunned his fans. For me, it was almost like when Diana had her accident or when Natalie Wood was found drowned off Santa Catalina. That's the level of deep emotional upset that admirers of Rush had -- not because his private life contradicted his public code but because of the revelation of the desperate, agonizing subterfuges to which he had been driven by his addiction.
Now, I do not agree with Rush on most political issues -- I voted for Ralph Nader! And I definitely don't agree with him on Iraq. But Rush transformed the media landscape in America. He resurrected AM radio. From coast to coast, AM radio is buzzing and vibrant because of what Rush did. He is a master broadcaster, a master of the microphone. Anyone who is a true student of media should respect his achievements.
Is his show what it was, say, in the early '90s? No. When anyone makes it big and is suddenly hobnobbing with the rich and famous, of course he or she no longer has that fire in the belly. The outsider becomes the insider. This happened to Howard Stern too. But I've been saying to friends for several years that something was happening with Rush's show. There was less air space and free-form rumination, less comedy and satire. At times, it felt like he was going through the motions, working himself up into a partisan fever because he thought his listeners expected it. I just assumed he was relaxing more, playing golf -- which he deserved!
In the beginning of his career, Rush was an odd character who did nothing but devour the news all day long and give his take on it -- and his audience kept expanding. Since Bush was elected, the show turned too much in an Us vs. Them direction -- "us" being conservative Republicans. But Rush's fan base crosses party lines. I now see that it was the drugs that were affecting the show. Rush was functioning amazingly well, but he was losing his original wide range of ideas.
When the McNabb flap broke, Rush could have caught himself and demonstrated his genuine erudition in football -- which he's shared with his audience for years. But suddenly his isolation became dramatically clear. Where was his staff? Callers to his show challenged him, asking who exactly in the media had ever overrated McNabb? Rush kept saying vaguely, "the Philadelphia media," and I winced. The Philadelphia media have fried McNabb! For heaven's sake, a radio star here even took a mob up to New York to boo McNabb on the day he was drafted! McNabb is personally very popular, but his uneven skills as a quarterback are constantly being hashed over here.
Days passed when Rush should have been getting research data from his staff -- chapter and verse to support his position. His inability to manage basic crisis control amazed me. But through all of that public abuse and exposure, he emerged not diminished but with the dimension of a major Hollywood star, like Judy Garland, who attained semi-divinity through her drug overdoses and suicide attempts. It's as if Rush stepped over from pugilistic political commentator to mysterious, tortured myth in just a few days.
When Democratic candidates like Dean attack Rush, they don't realize how they are alienating millions of people. By blaming the messenger, all they're doing is showing that the Democrats have no answer to the policy dilemmas of our day. And that Newsweek cover story hatchet job on Rush was a total disgrace! After two years of intense debate about whether the American media is biased toward liberals, for Newsweek to produce such a pathetically underreported piece of crap is mind-boggling. Rumor has it that Newsweek stringers had gathered more positive comments about Rush's career that were junked by the top editors.
Of course the newsmagazines never honestly covered Rush Limbaugh as a major force in American media and politics since the early '90s, but Newsweek finally put him on the cover for his drug scandal. That's fine -- it's breaking news -- but then shouldn't they have interviewed some longtime Rush fans who know the show? But who do they call? Maureen Dowd -- that catty, third-rate, wannabe sorority queen. She's such an empty vessel. One pleasure of reading the New York Times online is that I never have to see anything written by Maureen Dowd! I ignore her hypertext like spam for penis extenders.
The nerve of Newsweek to be portraying Rush as a "schlub" -- as if that wouldn't describe half the big enchiladas in Hollywood! In 1992, at the glittering 25th anniversary black-tie party for "60 Minutes" at the Metropolitan Museum of Art, I dined at a small table with Rush Limbaugh. He was a jovial, witty, commanding figure who offered me a cigar. The distorted portrait of him in Newsweek was vile and meretricious.
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Say what?
Plus she couldn't be more wrong about Iraq. She's even still quoting the media-made myth about Iraq's national museum being looted.
Hey, cut her a break She's an academic.
One of the job's perogatives is irresponsibility.
Even though he went to college, his world is amazingly simple -- as if he learned the absolute truths of the universe from Catholic catechism. He seems to be blissfully unaware of his automatic and sometimes servile deference to male authority. Of course he's emotionally pro-Bush and pro-war in Iraq: the Bush administration has made no mistakes and never stretched a fact. Anyone who questions Bush is a traitor who is undermining our troops. Liberals hate America. And America is always right, especially when it selflessly brings the joys of freedom to the down-trodden serfs of the world. Hannity seems to have had absolutely no experience of any country or people beyond our borders. For him, America is a blessed, sunny islet in a dark sea of oppression and ignorance.
Lord no. Ever hear her speak? I bet she's upwards of 300 wpm. Too fast for untrained ears over the radio. If you
didn't know who she was, you'd turn her off in a second.
As a guest host, I don't think she'd be appreciated or listenable.
Her description of Dowd is priceless. LOL !!!!!!!!
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