A Note On Rush Limbaugh

K-Lo at NRO points out that it's Rush Limbaugh's 19th anniversary today.

Rush Limbaugh celebrates his 19th year on the air today. People love him and people hate him and just like my post on Bill Bennett yesterday, I’ll get the predictable ridicule for praising Rush today. But you know what? People love Rush and people hate Rush because he matters and he matters because he is effective.

Younger people, and many discussing politics on the Web these days are that, especially on the Left, can't possibly understand the significance of Rush Limbaugh. True, he is ultimately an entertainer and only one of various Talk Radio talkers today, even if he is the most popular. But there was a time when that wasn't true. Here's a Letter to the Editor from the NY Times circa 1993:

As a member of the culturally handicapped, socially offensive and all-around despicable crowd of losers that has found at least one member of the news media, in Rush Limbaugh, who does not forever live in the land of George Orwell, I hoped Walter Goodman could address the ideas expounded in "The Way Things Ought to Be" (Feb. 21).

If you were conservative, or even center-Right in the early nineties and picked up The Way Things Ought To Be, you didn't so much learn something new, as you did, for the first time in media anyway, feel for once that common sense was being given a voice it had appeared to be lacking up until that point. And it wasn't so much Republican versus Democrat back then as it was we versus them. The them being big media, as well as the political establishment in DC, in general.

Limbaugh's genuine talent, the repeal of the Fairness Doctrine in 1987 and smart marketing and management changed media and politics, giving what ultimately proved to be the Reagan Legacy a place to exist outside the realm of elective politics. It doesn't always win the day and certainly doesn't dominate, the way some DC politicians would allege. But it has flourished, grown and even branched out, as witnessed by the success of so many others like Mark Levin, Laura Ingraham, Hugh Hewitt, and too many more to even mention.

Today it even intertwines with even newer media in the form of blogs and the Web. If you consider yourself a Right-sided new media voice, and that includes bloggers, you can argue this would have all happened without him. And you may be correct. But whether you like Limbaugh, or not, agree with him, or not, what you cannot assert is that things would be exactly as they are without him.

And that's actually saying quite a bit, when you stop to think about it.

Comments

[IslamoLlama]

Remember when Rush used to talk about football?

[bloodrage bob]

remember when they told us that air america would "drive rush from the airwaves in a burst of clean, pure, white light"?

rush is still here ... air america ended up stealing from kids and bouncing checks. hmm. ya know, that's kind of an allegory right there in itself.

[chris]

Wow, un/underemployed rednecks listening to AM radio en masse during the middle of the day. A formidable bunch!

[TheSpartan]

Remember to stay off of drugs kids...

[JammieWearingFool]

All these years later and you still have morons like Chris making idiotic comments. Apparently he's unaware people are able to listen to the radio while working/driving or they have Rush 24/7.

Oh, and the comments about drugs--you really need some fresher material.

BTW, Rush does talk about football--during the football season.

Thanks for the nice post on this. I heard a bit of his show during lunch today and he noted it was the anniversary. I've been listening for 15 years, and he's still the undisputed king of talk radio; and of course, he still drives the moronic left into paroxysms whenever they hear his name.

If only they actually listened. They might grow up and learn something.

[chris]

Does Oxyman still peddle the 'Limbaugh Letter' to the slowcoaches so that they can defend their asinie positions against the libruls at work?

He certainly has you dopes figured out!

[buckofive]

Here's the thing about the Fairness Doctrine -- it's all a red herring. I consult for the NAB on this very issue, so believe me when I say, the Fairness Doctrine itself is not coming back.

But that isn't even the point, you see -- the point is to distract. Sure, a few high profile Senators have mentioned it -- but that's just to gin up attention in the wrong place. Try looking for liberal blogs talking about the Fairness Doctrine -- it's not a big subject.

The real issues going on have to do with FCC rules governing media ownership. If you're familiar with the FreePress campaign Stop Big Media (I'm not going to link it, but it's easily Googlable) then you know where this is all really headed.

Watch the FCC. That's where the real action is.

[TheSpartan]

Maybe I should mention his bringing someone elses viagra prescription to noted child prostitution hotbed DR while traveling alone instead of his drug habit?

[bloodrage bob]

famous old lawyer saying: "when you have no case - *no possible way* of winning on the strength of your argument - then abuse the plaintiff".

see above.