Posted on 11/16/2003 7:00:14 PM PST by RonDog
Limbaugh Is Back on the Air, With Fans and Foes All Ears
By JACQUES STEINBERG
Published: November 17, 2003
Associated PressRush Limbaugh, the conservative radio talk show host, addressing the National Association of Broadcasters on Oct. 2 in Philadelphia.
ore than five weeks after he entered a residential treatment center for what he described as an addiction to prescription pain medication, Rush Limbaugh is to return to the airwaves today.While his voice will be beamed into an atmosphere swirling with questions not the least of which center on whether he acquired some of those drugs illegally one point seems assured: Mr. Limbaugh, by far the biggest star in talk radio, is poised to draw one of the biggest audiences in his 15-year career in syndication.
Of those tuning into the program, which will be broadcast live on the East Coast beginning at noon, the most vocal are likely to be split into two camps. Some will be loyalists, many of them conservatives, who have expressed a willingness in recent weeks to forgive Mr. Limbaugh his transgressions.
Others, however, may be less familiar with his show many of them the "feminazis" and other liberals Mr. Limbaugh says he loves to hate who wonder how he might reconcile his own behavior with his past statements recommending jail time for drug users.
"I would expect that Limbaugh's listenership will be three to four times its normal size when he comes on the air," said Michael Harrison, the editor and publisher of Talkers magazine, a trade journal, which estimates Mr. Limbaugh's weekly audience at more than 14.5 million.
"Personally, he might be in the worst trench he's ever been in. But people are curious to hear what Rush's going to say, which puts him, professionally, at the peak of his career."
Mr. Limbaugh, who is heard on WABC-AM in New York and counts his audience as closer to 20 million, has done nothing to dampen that anticipation. A spokesman, Allan Mayer, said on Friday that Mr. Limbaugh was giving no interviews and would not even say whether he was planning to broadcast from his studios in Manhattan or those in West Palm Beach, Fla., near where he has a home.
Before he went silent, Mr. Limbaugh was the subject of news reports in The National Enquirer and other publications that he had bought drugs like OxyContin, a powerful painkiller, without a prescription. Other reports suggested that law enforcement officials were investigating the matter, and Mr. Limbaugh told his listeners that he would not discuss any details "until this investigation is complete."
Asked what Mr. Limbaugh might say today, Mr. Mayer said: "The only people he's going to be speaking to publicly are his own listeners, through his own microphone. They are going to get it from the horse's mouth, as it were, the first comments he has to make about his own situation and his view of the world."
In many ways, how people view Mr. Limbaugh's prospects for recovery personally, as well as professionally depends on their political affiliations. Mr. Limbaugh had been a hero of the right, particularly after he helped galvanize those who seized Congress for the Republicans in 1994.
William J. Bennett, a conservative who served as the so-called drug czar during the first Bush administration, said in an interview that Mr. Limbaugh was at the center of "a human drama about a guy who's having huge success, takes a huge step down, and is now trying to get himself in shape."
That Mr. Limbaugh, with his advocacy of stiff punishment for drug offenders, would himself admit to a long-term addiction was evocative of the situation that Mr. Bennett was in earlier this year. One of the nation's pre-eminent moral crusaders, Mr. Bennett acknowledged that he had set a poor example by "too much gambling."
Nonetheless, Mr. Bennett sought in the interview to distinguish his own shortcomings from the conduct of Mr. Limbaugh, a close friend who has dined at his home, once with Justice Clarence Thomas. "Not an addiction," Mr. Bennett said of his own actions, as if ticking off a list of talking points, "not a problem, no therapy, gambling too much, stopped it."
And yet Mr. Bennett said that Mr. Limbaugh deserved to be judged less severely than former President Bill Clinton, a Democrat and perennial Limbaugh target, who was impeached in 1999 over his deceptions regarding an affair with a White House intern. "He's not president of the United States," Mr. Bennett said of Mr. Limbaugh. "He's not blaming his accusers. He's not lying. He's not lying under oath."
"He was manly," Mr. Bennett added of Mr. Limbaugh. "He was straightforward."
Limbaugh Is Back on the Air, With Fans and Foes All Ears
Published: November 17, 2003
(Page 2 of 2)
To Phil Friedman, a Democratic strategist who has worked for former Gov. Mario M. Cuomo, former Mayor Edward I. Koch and Senator Robert C. Byrd of West Virginia, the circumstances of Mr. Limbaugh's fall may differ from those of Mr. Clinton's, but the loyalty of his fiercest supporters is a common thread. Mr. Friedman also saw parallels to the situation of Marion S. Barry Jr., who was re-elected mayor of Washington in 1994, four years after investigators caught him in a hotel room smoking crack cocaine.
"When you have a constituency that strong and an audience that devoted, they will forgive you anything, short of murder," Mr. Friedman said. "I think the cause is so important to them that they're not willing to sacrifice a leader because of his personal flaws."
After announcing on Oct. 10 that he was addicted to prescription painkillers and was checking into a rehabilitation center for 30 days, Mr. Limbaugh was replaced by a succession of guest hosts, including Tony Snow and Walter Williams, both political commentators, and Matt Drudge, the creator of the online Drudge Report (drudgereport.com).
It will be several weeks before Arbitron, the ratings service, compiles the audience figures during that period. But Mr. Mayer said that surveys of about 1,000 listeners each week, conducted for Mr. Limbaugh's producers by another company, showed that few were defecting. Moreover, the 150 advertisers who buy time on Mr. Limbaugh's nationally syndicated broadcast have expressed their desire to continue to do so, Mr. Mayer said, and none of the 600 stations that carry the program have dropped it.
The passion of Mr. Limbaugh's loyal listeners, who refer to themselves as dittoheads, has been on parade daily on rushlimbaugh.com, his Web site, which as of yesterday had posted reams of e-mail messages sent by well-wishers since his departure. All were identified by their first names and hometowns, as if they were calling in to the show.
They included Akiva from New York, who wrote that Mr. Limbaugh was in the prayers "of all your fans at my rabbinical seminary."
Mr. Limbaugh has said that he became addicted to painkillers after spinal surgery in the 1990's, an admission that prompted a torrent of similar testimony. "I made it," wrote Richard of South Lyon, Mich., "you can too!!!"
There is much riding on whether Mr. Limbaugh can beat his addiction, including a lot of money. His program generates many millions in advertising revenue, not only for Clear Channel Communications, which owns the company that syndicates it, but for the stations that broadcast his program.
Rick Jackson, the general manager of WBT, an AM station in Charlotte, N.C., that has carried Mr. Limbaugh for more than a decade, said he expected today to be "one of the biggest days in our broadcast history" maybe even bigger, he said, than the few hours during Hurricane Hugo in 1989 when WBT was believed to be the only local station on the air.
"Now who knows what will happen after he returns?" Mr. Jackson said. "A lot will depend on how he handles it."
One, somewhat sarcastic comment 8 years ago makes Limbaugh an advocate?
I keep wondering what I have messed. I've never sensed that.
Rush Returns To the Air This Monday, November 17th David Limbaugh announces that the Maha Rushie will be returning to the Golden EIB Microphone on Monday...transcript, audio>
David's previous updates on Rush...10.16.03 || 10.22.03 || 10.30.03 ||11.07.03
E-mails: More than 35 pages> || Send: DittosRush@RushLimbaugh.com
Tell Your Local Station & EIB Advertisers You Love El Rushbo: here>
Honor Rush In Los Angeles on November 21: details>
Newsweek Flooded with Letters Defending Rush: details>
Survey Shows Overwhelming Support for Rush: details>
On Rush: Paglia II Hagelin || Scarborough || Fillmore || Brooks || Neumayr || Bianchi || Jacob || Antle || Ruddy || Coulter || Walker || York || Williams || Podhoretz || Kurtz || Cavuto || Lucianne || Drudge
Theodore Dalrymple
I saw this quote about a month ago on FR and it rocked me. I think a lot of us have a lot to thank Rush for and we know it. He'll do fine.
Im not a Rush basher. I named my kid Rush. But he has a little adjustment to make in his promotion of the war on drugs.
He he. Why should Rush give even one word of response to the New York Times, when his own direct audience is 10 to 20 times larger than theirs? That's why they hate him so much. Not just because he's conservative, but because he has helped destroy their monopoly on the news.
Rush audience size: 20,000,000
NYT readership size: 1,100,000
Game. Set. Match.
PS:
"Rush Limbaugh has only 20 million people listening to him every day. I suspect there is a Democratic plot out there keeping him from the rest of the American people. Fifteen more years and there will be a Radio Limbaugh in Baghdad."
William F. Buckley Jr.
Rush audience size: 20,000,000So, tomorrow's show will get 60,000,000 to 80,000,000 listeners?
Hooray Rush. Give 'em hell.
I hope he speaks to the filibuster, hitlery's big adventure, teddy's neanderthal comment, coupling it with hillary's lemon comment and mary landrieus hateful directive to Judge Brown.
So much to discuss and nail down and sooooooooo little time!
WELCOME BACK MAHA RUSDIE!
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