Concerning Rush Limbaugh

     The best measure of a man’s impact on the world is the intensity of the reaction to news that he has departed it, or that he soon will.

     Rush Limbaugh is not a politician. He’s never held public office. He’s not a Captain of Industry. He holds no Nobel Prizes. He’s not celebrated for great works of humanitarianism. He’s a commentator whose preferred medium is radio, at which he has done superbly well. Yet the news of his Stage 4 lung cancer – barring a miracle, a sentence of near-term expiration – has much of America agog.

     Yes, I know about the effusions of hatred and ill-wishing toward him on social media. But the overwhelming majority of the emissions over Limbaugh’s malady have been expressions of sadness, even extreme sadness. We anticipate the loss of a man who for three decades spoke for us eloquently, forcefully, and memorably. We cannot imagine ever again seeing his like.

     Rush Limbaugh is the voice of Forgotten America: the millions who hold to the traditional vision of the nation as a place where men could be free.

     Yes, I’ve disagreed with him on one or two things. What does that matter? He energized a dying medium in a fashion no one could have expected: by talk. And what talk! He was incisive, clear, knowledgeable, and funny. In a time of grim hyper-earnestness, Limbaugh could entertain and enlighten with the same words.

     A friend of mine put it concisely: “He always knows his shit.” More than that, he knew how to couch a verbal lance. Does anyone else remember the first “caller abortion?” Does anyone else remember laughing hysterically when he said to his engineer “Did we get it all?”

     I have his first two books: The Way Things Ought To Be and See, I Told You So. Though print is a less immediate medium than radio, he managed to convert his voice virtues substantially into printed words. Many a non-fiction writer could do well by studying those books.

     The Left’s drive for the reimposition of the Fairness Doctrine has always been about Limbaugh. He’s making us look bad! Get him off the air! But they couldn’t. He had a listener base that was larger and more faithful than any in history. No “progressive” legislator dared to move openly against him; it would be too likely that the legislator, not Limbaugh, would suffer for it. Limbaugh was a one-man impassable barrier against the resurgence of censorship of the media for political advantage.

     Once they realized that they couldn’t silence him, they tried to compete with him. My God, the abysmal depth, the ludicrousness of their failures! Time after time left-wing mouthpieces tried the talk-radio format, only to crash and burn so swiftly that it was as if their demises had been foreordained. Ask Jim Hightower, or Alec Baldwin, about their experiences with talk-radio...from a safe distance.

     Of very few of us will it be said – truthfully, at least – that “He changed the world for the better.” Rush Limbaugh made America a much different nation than the one into which he was born, and he did it almost exclusively with his voice. “Talent on loan from God,” indeed. His achievement should be celebrated by all who understand and love freedom.