Behind Closed Doors with Rush

Limbaugh... Not the killer prog rock group

I am not posting a picture of that guy

I found out about Rush Limbaugh’s death a couple days ago via Facebook. It was via a post from a person who is a friend of a neighbor of a family member in Florida. It simply read, “RIP RUSH.”  I knew then that I was in for a deluge of posts echoing that news. Few of them would be as short, and none of them would be as charitable.

The expected deluge came. The proper obituaries in the New York Times and Washington Post came out. Fox News freaked out because those eminent new organizations had the audacity to actually illustrate in those obits who the man was and what he did, and round and round and round it went. Friends on social media commenting on the comments on the comments.

It did get me thinking, though, that there was one thing that I could add to this story. The fact is that I have had an experience that almost all these people have not: I have heard what Rush Limbaugh would say behind closed doors.

Let’s set the “wayback machine”  to the spring of 2009 when I was crashing yet another so-called "New Media Seminar." A convention for talk radio professionals, largely a right-leaning medium (and mostly on the AM band), I would propose that  the name was a bit ironic. For most, “new media” brings to mind a much hipper group of folks than the conservative luddites found in this room.

My father, a talk show veteran himself (though not the right-wing kind), would let me tag along sometimes. I rather enjoyed these events. Don’t get me wrong. Most of it was boring as hell. But sometimes it felt like I was going right into the belly of the beast. Plus there was often an open bar, and how often do you get shake hands with G. Gordon Liddy?

These events were put on by Talkers Magazine, the industry trade publication. Every year they would give a “Free Speech Award” to people who exemplified the virtues of, or pushed the limits of, the First Amendment. At this convention in 2009 the award was being given to Rush.

In contrast with the previous years’ awards dinners, on this day the presentation ended up happening in one of those small auditoriums in convention centers that are specifically designed to inhibit any artistic use. The steps to the stage were inconveniently located at the far end of the room, opposite the door, so there was no way of making a good entrance. I remember that we were sitting front and center, which meant that every speaker had to cross right in front of us, and pretty awkwardly close, as well. Standing up to make more room for the presenter and recipient able to pass more easily, I recall thinking that I thought Rush would be taller (to be fair, he was actually above average height).

This is not Rush Limbaugh

The presenter, Talkers’ Publisher Michael Harrison, made his introductory remarks in a way that almost
seemed apologetic, as if he felt the need to explain why this award was to be presented to a person  who routinely used our cherished First Amendment in the most despicable ways. Much like the old adage of “I despise what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it,” he launched into a solemn speech about how this right needs to afforded to all, and if not… and these words still ring in my ears… “There is no America.”

(Here I begin to paraphrase due to being over decade removed from this event, but I believe I accurately present the spirit of his words.)

He continued: “Without allowing voices of dissent, there is no America. Without allowing voices with which we vehemently disagree, there is no America. The paradox and irony of America is that if we muzzle those voices that seek to destroy America, there is no America.”

Those words shook me to my core then. They seem naively idealistic to me today.

Rush took to the stage and I saw something in him I had never seen or ever thought I would: Humility. He accepted the award graciously and spoke to this room full of broadcasters, not about politics, not about partisanship, but about the one thing that they all had in common: Radio.

“All I am interested in is making good radio. I am not a political pundit. I am not an expert.  I am an entertainer. I want to engage and provoke listeners. I’m not saying that I don’t believe what I say, but I am a political commentator as a very distant second to being an entertainer. It’s all about good radio.”

For that moment I had a grudging respect for the man. I mean, in terms of “radio guys” (and they do call themselves that), in terms of grabbing onto the ears of listeners, being unorthodox and unpredictable, energizing and growing a listener base, and being just damned entertaining, it cannot be denied that he was extremely effective.

...and neither is this.

In my defense of my momentary feeling lapse of disdain, I never really listened to his show. So at that moment, watching him appear to speak from his actual heart, I didn’t remember some of the more egregious things he had said and done. For one thing, I don’t think at that time that I knew about his infamous “AIDS Update” segment, which he would introduce with Dionne Warwick’s “I’ll Never Love This Way Again,” and proceed to mockingly read off the names of people who died of AIDS. Also, back then in 2009, I was yet to see just how much he would embrace his status as an alt-right (i.e. facist) mouthpiece. At this innocent time, the neo-Nazis were largely still in their bunkers, and Rush was still pretty much just a run-of-the-mill right-wing stooge.

Interestingly, as I started writing this, I came across a piece in Talkers magazine ruminating on his legacy in radio. The piece, written by the magazine’s managing editor, Mike Kinosian, attempting to eschew political bias, illustrated the man simply as the groundbreaking figure he was in the business. While the piece did not validate his politics, it was too effusive in its praise of him as a shrewd and inventive broadcaster for my taste. Still, written from an insider’s point of view, it presented an angle not found in his other obituaries:  His insecurity and feelings of isolation from the mainstream figures in his industry. Kinosian ultimately wrote that “we can only speculate if he believed his own hype.”

Evidently, this side of him was an open secret within the industry. Clearly, he was driven by insecurity and was well aware that he was not providing his listeners with unique insight, but candy wrapped with fool’s gold.

Frankly, I do not know what is worse, an ideologue or an opportunist. I would say the latter. That moment in the auditorium when I actually appreciated his candor, is actually what makes me find him all the more despicable. See, it’s just lovely to say a person that he had a well of resentment, anger, and insecurity which caused him to act in a certain way, but sometimes it’s just like pointing out that the guy who killed his entire family was, himself, abused as a child. At some point, you just say: “How poignant. Fuck him anyway.”

And that’s all I have to say about that. For a brief moment I saw that there was another side to that man, a man more in touch with his own reality even if not the reality of the world around him. He seemed reasonable enough that I can say with utmost confidence that he must have recognized that moment he went from being an entertainer to being an instigator and a dissembler, willfully sowing seeds of disinformation and division for glory and financial gain. He was most certainly aware of that turning point. And he kept going, with even greater determination. As long as he stayed on top.

So fuck him.

A much better kind of Rush.