Rush Limbaugh was like a cool uncle to me

Oddly, it was a liberal friend who introduced me to Rush Limbaugh back in 1990, when the conservative radio talker was just getting started. When I started listening to him, I remember feeling thunderstruck that such a man was allowed to say the sort of things he was saying on the air. I had never heard his like before.

Before Rush, two methods existed to engage the Left. One either yelled at them or wrote erudite, high brow articles for the National Review. Rush found a third way to deal with the Left. He mocked them. He mocked them with parody songs, voice impressions, and just plain banter. Rush drove the Left up the wall with his ceaseless mocking

For instance, early in Rush’s career, he offered the following song celebrating one of history’s worst monsters, Hillary Rodham Clinton:

Of course, this was even before some of the twice defeated presidential candidate’s worst atrocities had come to light, such as her destruction of a 12-year old rape victim named Kathy Shelton.

Rush also made fun of Al Gore and the entire climate change movement:

Rush’s voice impressions were spot on as well, as witness this one of Bill Clinton:

Rush would give the same treatment to other self-important members of the Left, especially Barack Obama. Both Clinton and Obama would publicly complain about the verbal ass kicking Rush would give them for three hours a day, five days a week.

Rush was like the cool uncle to me. You know the type. He was the guy who entertained the nieces and nephews at family dinners while the adults cringed. When I worked in a corporate office, I would put headphones on and listen, snickering on occasion. I had to stop myself from time to time bellowing laughter out loud.

One time a female coworker, left of center, accosted me and said, “I know you listen to Rush,” with a slight smile and a wink, as if she had caught me doing something naughty.

Later, when I started to work from home, Rush was always on the radio when he show was being broadcast. Then I did not hold back the bellowed laughter when he punctured some self-important leftwing twit.

Rush, naturally, was accused of a multitude of sins, including racism, sexism, and homophobia. These accusations occurred before social media brought about cancel culture. Rush would absolutely deflate these accusations by mocking them on the air.

Rush has been said to have made two politicians, Newt Gingrich and Donald Trump. When Gingrich seized control of Congress in 1994, Rush was made an honorary member of the incoming class and was dubbed “the majority maker.” Around that time, Bill Buckley’s National Review named Rush “leader of the opposition.”

Like many of us, Rush was not too sure about Donald Trump in the beginning. But Trump, like many Republicans before him, knew enough to cultivate the king of talk radio, Rush became one of Trump’s warmest supporters, an investment that paid dividends for conservatives in the form of constitutional judges, economic prosperity, the Space Force, a return to the moon program, and the development of vaccines against the Coronavirus in record time.

When Rush announced that he had stage four lung cancer, I knew what it meant, A friend of mine died from complications of the disease on my living room floor as I watched in sadness and horror while the EMTs tried to revive him.

Still, during the subsequent year that featured a once in a century pandemic and the election of an elderly, senile political hack to the presidency, I prayed and hoped against hope that some treatment could be found that would give many years more life to Rush Limbaugh,

Sadly, it was not to be. His wife made the announcement:

I felt about Rush’s death, in the same way, I felt about the death of a great president of the United States, such as Ronald Reagan. Moreover, my cool uncle in spirit will no longer entertain me with his words of wisdom or share a joke at the expense of the self-important Left. Like Abraham Lincoln, Rush Limbaugh is with the ages.

I can imagine Rush waking up, all care and pain gone, in that green field with the sun on his face, to crib a line from Gladiator, being greeted not only by dead family members, but by people like Ronald Reagan, Bill Buckley, and many others who had drawn strength from his words over the years. Rush Limbaugh changed the course of history, not by winning a war or passing some great law, but by talking. A fine legacy, that.

Mark Whittington, who writes frequently about space and politics, has published a political study of space exploration entitled Why is It So Hard to Go Back to the Moon? as well as The Moon, Mars and Beyond. He blogs at Curmudgeons Corner. He is published in the Wall Street Journal, Forbes, The Hill, USA Today, the LA Times, and the Washington Post, among other venues.