Those kinds of superlatives appear throughout the book, a 500-page “timeless collection of Rush’s brilliant words” and “authoritative body of Rush’s best work,” interspersed with pictures from various stages of his career and tributes to him by Ron DeSantis, Ronald Reagan, Ben Carson, Mike Pence, Benjamin Netanyahu, Clarence Thomas, and Donald Trump. The illustrations include a full-page photo of three of the crystal-obelisk award trophies that Limbaugh received from the National Association of Broadcasters, several full-page photos of his Presidential Medal of Freedom (given to him by Trump in 2020), a double-page spread showing Limbaugh’s Palm Beach mansion, another showing his private plane, another with screen grabs from his appearances on The Tonight Show and Family Guy, as well as covers from his monthly Limbaugh Letter (including photos of Rush as a boxer, Rush as Captain America, and Rush behind a presidential desk in a mock-up of the Oval Office). We see Rush in a tuxedo, flanked by uniformed Marines; Rush by his signature golden microphone with an American flag behind him; and Rush on the cover of The New York Times Magazine, smoking a big cigar. There is also—because why not?—a full double-page spread devoted to a photograph of Margaret Thatcher sitting next to Ronald Reagan. It must be conceded that the book is a slickly produced homage that will delight Rush’s fans, and that there are many dads “across the fruited plain” (to use a favorite Limbaugh phrase) who will be pleased when they get it as a birthday or Christmas present. Perhaps for this reason, it has already debuted at No. 1 on The New York Times’ nonfiction bestseller list.
To those who know Limbaugh only as a right-wing blowhard, Radio’s Greatest of All Time helps explain some of what made him appealing to listeners. Many of the transcripts printed in the book are from callers who claim that Limbaugh changed their lives in one way or another, by encouraging them to take control of their destinies and reject “victimology.” Limbaugh haters may be surprised—I certainly was—by how many of the included transcripts are more like self-help or life-coaching sessions than the crass diatribes Limbaugh was better known for. One listener tells Rush: “The message that you’re giving us every day—self-sufficiency, self-reliance, get out there, do what you love, be aggressive, be bold—if we live our lives by the principles that you are espousing, we’ll all be successful.” One of the show’s guest hosts describes Limbaugh as “that voice in our head when perhaps we debuted ourselves, faced a fear in life, or just needed some encouragement and motivation.” Radio’s Greatest of All Time presents Limbaugh as someone who inspired listeners to be their best selves, who offered a positive and uplifting vision of America (as opposed to liberals and leftists, who hate their country), and who believed in beautiful, noble, patriotic things. He loved the Bill of Rights and the spirit of individualism and believed that the American dream was attainable by all. An entire section of the book is devoted to chronicling Limbaugh’s “generosity,” with his philanthropic contributions enumerated in a bullet-point list.
No matter his supposed philanthropy, Limbaugh never really concealed the fact that he was far more interested in making money than in effecting social change. Asked by 60 Minutes what he was trying to do with his show, Limbaugh replied that he was ultimately “trying to attract the largest audience I can and hold it for as long as I can, so I can charge advertisers confiscatory advertising rates. This is a business.” Asked by the host if he was therefore “in it for the money,” Limbaugh replied that of course he was in it for the money. In Radio’s Greatest of All Time, he similarly notes that when his critics “examine this program, none of them do so in terms of the career aspect of it” but instead “look at me as a political figure who happens to be on the radio.” Limbaugh was selling a product, not waging a policy crusade. (...)
There is one thing the left can learn from Limbaugh: not how to tell lies or make bigoted jokes but how to communicate effectively to a broad public. Limbaugh promised to make his listeners “the go-to guy in your circle of friends who has the answers” by putting them through the “Limbaugh Institute of Advanced Conservative Studies.” In the book, his listeners recount how he served as both an educator and a voice of reassurance.
An obituary in the American Thinker asserted that Limbaugh “managed to convey what conservatism is about to a mass audience better than any teacher ever could.” Indeed, Thom Hartmann has written in The Nation that the left is making a big mistake by not competing effectively with right-wing talk radio, which is still an important force. The rumors of radio’s death are greatly exaggerated: 83 percent of Americans still listen to terrestrial radio in a given week, and almost all of the top-rated political talk show hosts are conservatives. Hartmann notes that in conservative talk radio, “there’s a mentoring system, there are people coming up through it on the right. And there’s nothing like that on the left.”
by Nathan J. Robinson, The Nation | Read more:
Image: Photo by Jim Watson / AFP)
[ed. Never understood why anyone would embrace the term 'dittohead", ie., not smart or articulate enough to express their own thoughts/feelings. Parrots gotta parrot.]
[ed. Never understood why anyone would embrace the term 'dittohead", ie., not smart or articulate enough to express their own thoughts/feelings. Parrots gotta parrot.]
