Posted on 07/30/2008 8:52:08 AM PDT by Reagan Man
I distinctly remember when my phone at my Washington hotel room rang at 1 AM during the spring of 1996. A distraught President Clinton was calling. “We’re getting killed on radio,” he blurted into the phone as soon as I picked it up.
“What do you mean?” I answered blearily trying to get a grip on what he was talking about.
“Hillary’s mothe r just drove here from Pennsylvania and all during the trip she heard them saying the most awful things about me on radio,” the president explained.
“On whose show?” I probed.
“Rush Limbaugh,” Clinton replied.
“He’s been on your case for years,” I answered.
“Yeah, but its getting serious,” he insisted.
The next morning, I got in touch with Terry McAuliffe at the Democratic National Committee to discuss setting up a war room to feed talking points to liberal talk show hosts to counter the pernicious influence of Rush!
Now that the wind blows at my back – no longer in my face – Rush sure comes in handy when its time to put the liberals in their place. There is, quite simply, nobody like him.
After all, before there was talk radio, there was Rush.
And before there was Fox News, there was Rush.
And before there was NewsMax, there was Rush.
And before their was Sean Hannity or Neil Boortz or Michael Medved or Dennis Prager or Mike Gallagher, there was Rush.
No other modern political commentator can lay claim to founding a branch of political discourse.
Honoring Rush for his contributions to America is not an empty exercise. At this moment, the liberal forces that hope to come to power with Barack Obama are set on a course to destroy the very institution that Rush founded – talk radio. Through a rigid application of the so-called fairness doctrine, they threaten to drive talk radio off the air and onto the Internet. Who knows if the listeners and the advertisers will follow?
Their goal is not to assure that liberals will be heard on the airwaves, but to guarantee that conservatives will not. The liberals know that left wing talk radio does not attract an audience and is a financial black hole. The collapse of Air America attests to that fact. NPR, black radio, Hispanic stations, and radio aimed at young people creams off the bulk of the would-be audience for liberal talk radio. So if stations can only air Rush or Sean or Neil if they also air the likes of Al Franken, they’ll probably cancel all talk radio and play music instead.
In our new book Fleeced, my wife Eileen McGann and I also raise the prospect that the left will seek to enforce sections of the FCC law which require “community participation” in the “ownership and management” of radio stations. As the National Review has pointed out, this can be a cover for infiltrating boards of directors and programming departments with liberals – an effort to hijack talk radio.
The liberals wouldn’t be trying to destroy talk radio if it weren’t working. And it was Rush who founded it and Rush who still leads the parade. Having attempted to discredit him, imprison him, silence him, or cow him, they have failed miserably. And, as a result, Rush still rules….and rocks!
Ditto that
20 years of Rush and they still don’t get it........................
In our new book Fleeced, my wife Eileen McGann and I also raise the prospect that the left will seek to enforce sections of the FCC law which require “community participation” in the “ownership and management” of radio stations. As the National Review has pointed out, this can be a cover for infiltrating boards of directors and programming departments with liberals – an effort to hijack talk radio.
Who needs Congress to pass a ‘Fairness Doctrine’ if you control the FCC and get them to do this?
You had better enjoy him while you can. First thing if the ‘Rats get in is the Fairness doctrine passed.
I expect to see it in January. And I wouldn’t be surprised if Rush was off the air by March.
Rush is a dried up husk of the greatness that he COULD have been.
He aided and abetted the destruction of American conservatism during the very liberal, internationalist Bush presidency.
It’s funny. Yesterday I heard the 20 year congrats from Sean Hannity on Rush’s show. I thought back to the earliest I remember listening. It was like 1993. I ran it in the Psych office I worked in. Drove the boss nuts.
Congrats Rush, and thanks! You were a little bit of sanity in Cuyahoga county.
mega-dittoes
um ... Rush LIKES MR. Bush it seems, but he doesn’t exactly care for how PRESIDENT Bush has acted, governed, led, defended en toto.
You *might* want to tone down your besmirching a little — but you are welcome to your opinion.
I wonder if he’s already searching for a new home somewhere far enough off the US coastline that he can move there and start “Radio-Free America.” /sarc, so of....
sort of....
Something Dick Morris and I actually agree on.
S much for Little Dick's parade of heroes. Other than Prager, they're all dim bulbs and self promoting schmucks.
I’m a little early but Happy Birthday!
Fixed it. Grant was on the air in 1970 doing conservative talk radio.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bob_Grant_(radio)
You can say Rush is the Babe Ruth of Talk Radio. That's true. But BOB GRANT is the TY COBB.
That would be awesome.
His ego needs a spanking.
Midwest DragRacing Dittos to Rush!!!!!!
Keep on keeping-on....airwaves or bytes we’ll be listening!
This is not Russia, Cuba, or other countries that can shut up their news papers, radio, and other means of open communication....last time I looked this is still America. Home of the FREE and the BRAVE, the latter has a few exceptions notably Nancy Pelosi, speaker for what is left of the Democratic Party cum Democratic Socialists of America. Every time one of them tries to hush Rush, an enormous ground swell like a tsunami hits them, but being on the really dim side, liberals never have understood why conservatives like truth and facts. Rush Limbaugh is an American Treasure and the absolute Teacher of Democracy. Reid, Pelosi, Frawnks, Murtha, Durbin, etc. are the utter dregs of vile politics.
Thank you GloriaJane. Very kind of you.
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