Free Republic

Five years ago today, a couple of hours before airtime, I was pottering about getting ready to guest-host The Rush Limbaugh Show when the telephone rang. It was Kraig Kitchin, his longtime friend (and head of the network that distributed his show), calling to break the news that Rush had died earlier that morning.Post-Limbaugh, talk radio seems smaller to me than it once did - not just because Rush had a big personality, but because he managed to fit the flotsam and jetsam of the news cycle into the big picture. Whatever topic he'd alight on, he would enlarge, and...

RUSH: No, we don't have the audio of what Herman Cain said to Christiane Amanpour. I just want to tell you what he said 'cause I got some e-mails, "Why are you getting so exorcised about this?" The reason I'm getting so exorcised about it is -- and I will admit I'm exorcised about it -- is not to criticize Herman Cain. Our guys are gonna have to learn at some point how to deal with these people. We're gonna have to stop going on their shows if we're not gonna know how to deal with them. When you are...

 ‘I Am Addicted to Prescription Pain Medication’ By Evan Thomas With Arian Campo-Flores and Catharine Skipp in West Palm Beach; Martha Brant, Mark Hosenball, Debra Rosenberg and Eleanor Clift in Washington; Kevin Peraino, Suzanne Smalley, Susannah Meadows, Peg Tyre and Rebecca Sinderbrand in New York <EXCERPTS> ...But it’s hard to find many people who really know him. He was a lonely object of mass adulation, socially ill at ease, at least occasionally depressed and, for the past several years, living in a private hell of pain and compulsion... New York Times columnist Maureen Dowd spent a revealing dinner date with...