“Talent on loan from God.”
Talk radio legend Rush Limbaugh succumbed to his lung cancer this morning. He was 70 years old.
The impact that Rush had on (particularly AM) radio is impossible to overstate. He’s also an excellent manifestation of what I often say about Garry Kasparov: I don’t know whether he’s the best ever, but he understands chess as well as anyone has ever understood anything.
As with Kasparov and chess, so with Rush and talk radio.
In my consistent experience, Rush’s detractors rarely got anything about him correct, which is primarily because they never listened to him—they only parroted what they heard others like themselves saying. We can reasonably expect a big wave of that in the period immediately following his death. I’m already seeing it in my feeds.
Rush was a Trump sycophant, and unsurprisingly, on that count I thought he was wrong. But it’s no more reasonable to define him by that than it is to define a legendary rock band by their output at the end of a four-decade career. (Plus, it was hardly the first time I disagreed with him.)
I’ll remember (and miss) his humor, first and foremost. Whether it was a quick retort or a considered parody constructed over many hours with a writing team, Rush’s intelligence and savvy served him brilliantly when it came to being funny. I’ll remember his television show, which was successful but which he never enjoyed nearly as much, fondly as well.
Finally, I’ll remember him as a beacon of sanity. His was a voice of insight and illumination during the Clinton and Obama presidencies, and he also pulled no punches when George W. Bush needed criticizing.
It’s not often we can say this and mean it, but I think it’s true today about Rush Limbaugh: we shall never again see his like.
God be with his family and friends. RIP.
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