I think you are missing something important. And something just came back to me that seems to illustrate it. Back in the '80s when the lefties were fond of criticizing Ronald Reagan's movie career, Parade magazine had an article on the subject--and I liked the conclusion, which wasCould Reagan act? Yes.And I think that is somehow related to Rush, and his radio show. On the radio Rush--having done his homework--goes into his live, unscripted performance. He is portraying himself, on the fly.
He always played himself.
It is a heartwarming role.We all do that, all the time--but you'd get bored listening to me doing it. Himself is able to be interesting doing that, day after day and year after year.
The point is that his TV show was scripted. In effect it was journalism--rapidly put together scripting read by, in effect, an anchor. So it was Rush, but Rush playing someone else's game. Kind of an infomercial for political conservatism.
And it's not like Rush just shows up at the radio studio and wings it; the time and energy put into show prep, added to 3 hours actually on-air, amounts to a full day's work. Now you add show-prep writing that script for a TV program, and a half-hour spent reading that script, and if you kept up with him for a day nobody would have to tell you you had put in a day's work!
That TV show just wasn't his game, and he was right to pull the plug on it to avoid burnout. OTOH he now has the web site and the dittocam, and he can show people graphs and even video clips if he really wants to. It's not as accessible as a TV channel, yet. But . . .
Haven't noticed it too much lately, though, perhaps he was doing it only because of the ear problem. But then I haven't been listening much lately, either.