I just checked my blog, and I mentioned the dearly departed Rush in 109 blog posts. The first one was on June 2, 2005, when John Kerry was complaining about the right wing noise machine that was drowning out the liberal message.
I know! If only!
But I think that the thing that defined Rush Limbaugh was his "jaunty optimism." I picked that line up from some liberal sneering at Rush, but now I can't find out who it was. Because when you search for Rush Limbaugh "jaunty optimism" the first thing that comes up is yours truly: "Glenn Beck's Girl Conservatism." In that piece I say:
I once read a critic of Rush Limbaugh who lightly sneered at his "jaunty optimism." That's it, I thought! That's exactly the secret of Rush Limbaugh: his day in, day out, irrepressible jaunty optimism. It's a profoundly male thing, of course. When men are under stress, whether they are an army platoon in a tough spot or working in a business that is teetering on the edge of failure, the response is to maintain a front of jaunty optimism, to say to your brothers that things are looking up, we'll get through to the end of this, and then we'll lift our arms with a brewski.
Also, I notice, that Ronald Reagan was noted for his "jaunty optimism."
But the other thing about Rush was that he was a Commoner. Actually, he was the son of a lawyer and his brother, David Limbaugh is also a lawyer. So, in a way, Rush was born Gentry and reinvented himself as a Commoner. Because what is more Commoner than starting out as a radio-station helper disk-jockey?
Anyway, that was how he presented himself on "The Rush Limbaugh Show." Nobody here but us regular guys and our common sense. And, from what I understand, Rush never put on airs. Rush told the story of the first time he got invited to see William F. Buckley Jr. at National Review headquarters in Manhattan. Kathryn Jean Lopez:
The first time he was to meet Bill, for an NR editorial dinner, he had his driver drive around the block a few times, because he was so nervous.
Common sense is the philosophy of the Commoner. The Commoner does not try to "make a difference," as the Gentry does. The Commoner lives within the received world of the culture and the world he was born into. And Commoner men make fun of things, because otherwise life would be too discouraging. Here's an example of who Rush was. His "Environmental Wacko Pick."
In the early days of the program, I picked football games on Fridays, and a lot of people listening didn’t care. They didn’t like football, some women and some guys. “Come on, stick to the issues!” So I devised a way to combine politics with the football picks and came up with the environmentalist wacko method. What it does, basically, is take each contest, take the teams involved, and determine who should win.
So he would go down the NFL matchups for the weekend and predict the result using the environmentalist moral narrative. Dallas Cowboys vs. Cleveland Indians? Hoo boy. It would be only right for the poor Indians to win that one. But what about the Seattle Seahawks against the Philadelphia Eagles? Hmm, that would be a puzzler to Rush, and he would wrestle with the environmentalist wacko pick where both the animals were notorious predators.
The Environmentalist Wacko Pick was pure Rush. Making a political and cultural point while skewering the opposition with a satirical take on their moral narrative. Really, nobody could beat him at that game.
They never let Rush into the Holy of Holies, never gave him a show on network TV, never celebrated him in the corridors of power. Of course not. Rush was a Commoner, not quite out of the top drawer, old chap.
No doubt that's why Chief Nancy of the Kapitol Keystone Kops tore up the speech of President Trump when he awarded Rush Limbaugh the Presidential Medal of Freedom.
"Mrs. Pelosi, Tear Down This Wall."
And liberals were trying to cancel Rush Limbaugh before there was a "cancel culture." They intimidated big corporate advertisers off his show. And they canceled his foray into NFL color commentary 20 years ago. You can see why. Rush said, of black quarterback Donovan McNabb:
I think what we've had here is a little social concern in the NFL. The media has been very desirous that a black quarterback do well. There is a little hope invested in McNabb, and he got a lot of credit for the performance of this team that he didn't deserve. The defense carried this team.
Sorry Rush. You are not allowed to say stuff like that. Not nohow.
What Rush Limbaugh did, with his Sacramento show and then his national show from New York City, starting in 1988, was to save the AM radio station business from oblivion. He and his backers figured that there was an opportunity in the middle of the day, after the end of the morning drive time shows, for a political show. And there was. And how.
That is the fundamental way that the market economy works. You notice something that nobody else has seen. And you decide to take a flyer.
But here's the thing. The Rush Limbaugh Show was Rush and his monologue, Rush and the call-ins. No guests, no interviews. Just Rush. And Rush made it look simple.
Yeah. If you want to know how hard it is to be an opera singer, don't listen to Luciano Pavarotti. Listen to someone just starting out, and feel how hard they are trying. The genius of genius is to make it look simple.
The same applies to former President Trump. He made it look simple. He made everyone think he was an amateur, a fool that caught a lucky break.
Sorry chum. A guy that takes out the entire field of GOP presidential hopefuls and then beats the candidate that was supposed to be the First Woman President is not a fool.
And the guy that reinvented political commentary and created a whole new industry was not the hateful bigot that liberals wanted him to be.
Rush Limbaugh had a lot of zingers, designed to get under the skin of Gentry liberals. One of them was his self-description: "talent on loan from God." You can take it any way you want. I take it to mean that Rush Limbaugh understood that his particular talent was God-given. But it was up to him to make it work.
Rest in Peace, Rush Limbaugh.
No comments:
Post a Comment