Rush Limbaugh Is Just Getting Started

NY Times Magazine ^ | 03 July 2008 | Zev Chafets

[txradioguy]

THE ATMOSPHERE in the studio on the morning after our dinner at Trevini was relaxed, even festive. When I arrived around 11, Limbaugh was at his computer, wearing shorts and doing prep.

Augusto, his personal chef, was there, preparing lunch, signaling an occasion. Limbaugh skipped the meal, explaining that he doesn’t eat close to show time for reasons of “burp prevention.” Snerdly, Dawn and the engineer joined me in the dining room, which looks as if it were decorated by Nancy Reagan’s fussy aunt.

Limbaugh’s program that day was, as usual, a virtuoso performance. He took a few calls, but mostly he delivered a series of monologues on political and cultural topics. Limbaugh works extemporaneously. He has no writers or script, just notes and a producer on the line from New York with occasional bits of information. That day, and every day, he produced 10,000 words of fluent, often clever political talk.

There was nothing he said that was startling — he spent parts of the show mocking Obama’s “change” mantra and excoriating those who believe in global warming and talking about foreign affairs. But if you think it is easy turning ancient Greenland, the influence of the teachers’ unions or changes in E.U. foreign policy into polemical comedy that will hold an audience for three hours — try it for 15 minutes at your next cocktail party.

Limbaugh entertains, but he also instructs. He provides his listeners with news and views they can use, and he teaches them how to employ it. “Rush is an intellectual-force multiplier,” Rove told me. “His listeners are, themselves, communicators.”

[Unrepentant VN Vet]

Hannity’s hands are too small to hold more than ten cue cards at the same time. /sarc/

However, his heart’s in the right place.

Get him into a battle of wits with TGO or Rush, and he’s a one-legged man in a butt kicking contest, and he knows it.

[MaryFromMichigan]

Listening to Hannity is like listening to a broken record. He constantly repeats himself, the same lines, over and over and over.

I agree.

And I while I don't mind when Rush embeds a commercial, I find it annoying when Sean does it.
Perhaps it's simple a matter of style.

He's a good man, though, but he's no Rush.

[EDINVA]

My sainted father smoked cigars his entire adult life, going back to the 50s when it was neither fashionable, cool, or powerful. Smoked till the day he died @ 85, And not from lung cancer.

[outinyellowdogcountry]

EXACTLY. I was sent this recently about one of our presidential candidates but it relates to O’Reilly.
Here it is:

While sewing up a cut on the hand of a 75 year old west Texas rancher, the doctor struck up a conversation. Eventually the topic got around to Obama and his bid to be the next President.

The old rancher said, ‘Well ya know somethin’ son, Obama is what we used to call... a ‘post turtle’.’ Not being familiar with the term, the doctor asked him what a ‘post turtle’ was. The old rancher said, ‘When you’re driving
down a country road and you come across a fence post with a turtle balanced on top, that’s called a ‘post turtle’.’

The old rancher saw a puzzled look on the doctor’s face, so he continued to explain. ‘You know he didn’t get up there by himself, he doesn’t belong up there, he doesn’t know what to do while he is up there, and you just wonder
what kind of a dumb ass put him up there in the first place !!’’

[writer33]

I think it’s a great picture. I know what the magazine was trying to do, but it’s still a great picture. He’s right. The eyes give that look of defiance towards liberals. Good stuff.

Thanks for the ping.

[OKIEDOC]

Thank you.

That describes Obama to a TEE, Post Turtle.