Rush: With talent on loan from God

(Published May 25, 1993.)

In public, liberals call him right-wing. They may call him something else privately. The national media call him talk radio's bombast king, the patron saint of white mail chauvinists. Feminists call him obnoxious and gays say he's shameful.

Call him what you want, Rush H. Limbaugh III has become talk radio's most phenomenally successful host in history, the guy with the guts to balance the biased national news media, to stick up for the poor abused middle-class male, to ram a thorn into the side of the new administration.

Every week millions of fans turn on their radios to listen to Limbaugh slay Democrats in general and liberals in particular.

Biting, sarcastic, humorous, irreverent, Limbaugh is now heard on 600 radio stations around the country -- and overseas -- with somewhere about 18 million listeners weekly. That kind of devoted following has been unheard of in radio since the heyday of Amos 'n Andy and Arthur Godfrey.

His critics say they are mostly small-town stations "in rectangular states" but they ignore the fact that he is also heard in such major-media markets as Los Angeles, Atlanta, Memphis and Sacramento (where he got his start as a talk-show host in 1984, replacing Morton Downey Jr., who was fired for racially insensitive remarks).

His nationally-syndicated television program debuted in September of 1992 and now has 14 million viewers.

Not bad for the native of the Mississippi River community of Cape Girardeau, Missouri, who skipped school to hang around the radio station in which his father had a financial interest (his father was a lawyer, as are Rush's grandfather -- who at age 101 was probably the oldest practicing attorney in the nation -- his brother and most of the other male Limbaughs) and was a disc jockey at 16, this college dropout who was fired from five radio jobs before landing the Sacramento spot.

Not that everybody loves the commentator who says he has been broke at least five times but whose annual income now is in the multi-millions. When the Southeast Missourian, his hometown newspaper, announced it was publishing a special section on the local boy who made good, its call-in phone line took some calls from folks who said, "Don't, the guy's embarrassing."

Too bad Limbaugh wasn't there to chat with them. He might have change their minds. His genius may well lie in his ability to beguile listeners who disagree with him but who can't stop listening long enough to turn the dial.

Limbaugh is the host of a three-hour midday satirical demolition of a long list of what he sees as America's enemies, chief among them liberals, "femi-Nazis," "environmental-wackos," "commie-libs," and "peaceniks."

Limbaugh is that rare commodity, a conservative Republican with a sense of humor, which takes some -- though not all, for certain -- of the sting out of his remarks.

His comments can be outrageous, at least if you lean to the left, and he can be outrageously arrogant (he says it's a put-on). Maybe so, maybe he actually believes he is as brilliant as he suggests.

Limbaugh is so successful that he has become a conglomerate, owning a share of his radio program and, if he has the time, speaking at $35,000 a pop. His first book, "The Way Things Ought To Be," is on the way to surpassing "Iacocca" as the best selling non-fiction hardcover of all time, except the Bible. (As of May 19, sales were logged in at 2,281,000 copies.) Limbaugh is working on another.

A sampling:

* The Epitome of Morality and Virtue. "Me. A man whom hundreds, perhaps even thousands, of American mothers hope their daughters will someday marry. (Maybe not: Limbaugh, 42, has been married -- and divorced -- twice.) I will not swear, speak sacrilegiously, demean any ethnic group or tolerate smutty remarks on the air. Double entendres are accepted, as they are a form of genuine humor."

* Femi-Nazi: "A feminist to whom the most important thing in life is ensuring that as many abortions as possible occur. There are fewer than 25 known femi-Nazis in the United States."

* The Fruited Plain: America.

* With Half My Brain Tied Behind My Back To Make It Fair: "Denotes the degree of mental aptitude I require to engage and demolish liberals and others who disagree with me. It is based on my inherent, compassionate desire not to humiliate those who think I am wrong."

* With Talent On Loan From God: "Often misunderstood by hypercritical and sensitive types to mean (I think) I am God. On the contrary, I believe I am what I am because of the grace of God and that my time on earth, as everyone's, is temporary. We are all on loan from God, you see."

* Saying More In Five Seconds Than Most Talk Show Hosts Say In A Whole Show: "Another of the countess ways of describing my unequaled Talent On Loan From God."

* Serving Humanity: "Another way of describing my incredible contribution to the human race."

* The Only Healthful Addiction In America: "My show."

His critics have feelings too. A California billboard asked: "Don't You Just Want to Punch Rush Limbaugh?" The Virginia Pilot called him, "The professional wrestler of talk shows." The Detroit Free Press: "A reactionary braggart."

The Cleveland Plain Dealer said listening to him was like being stuck "at a very bad party next to a disingenuously argumentative loudmouth who won't shut up even when his mouth is full of cheese dip."

NOW said he was "95.9% obnoxious." A writer for The Moniter said, "He should have been named Rush 'Limburger' because his routine really stinks."

That routine involves making liberals his daily target. One of his favorites is Ted Kennedy. He even has a regular "Ted Kennedy Update" feature on his program. He says he's balancing a biased national media, and surveys indicate many Americans agree with him.

"If you listen to this program, you will never, ever need to read another newspaper again," says Limbaugh, a regular reader of nine conservative and liberal organs of public opinion including the New York Times and the Washington Post. "I will do it for you. And you get a bonus... I will tell you want to think about what is going on."

Don Meyers, general manager of WMC-AM Radio in Memphis, said when the station began running the show: "At first it's a slap in the face, it's a bucket of cold water. Then the calls and letters just flooded in on how great he was."

The New York Newsday called him an egomaniacal though lighthearted conservative. The gay community named him to its "Hall of Shame" in 1990.

He lumps his targets under the loose definition of "new authoritarians," which he defines as "... socialists hoping to get rid of the free enterprise system."

Well up toward the top of the list is the Clinton administration, the people who, according to Limbaugh, are holding America hostage, who are giving us "The Raw Deal."

Limbaugh comes by his conservatism naturally. His father's considered opinions and emphatic deliver of same were legendary. His grandfather briefly was a roving goodwill ambassador to India during the Eisenhower administration. His uncle was named a federal judge by President Reagan. His brother, David, and several of his cousins are attorneys and one sits on the Missouri Supreme Court.

All are solid Republicans.

Obviously Limbaugh didn't reject family politics. But in his own way he did rebel, dropping out of class at Southeast Missouri State at Cape Girardeau (he says he has always hated school) at 20 to take a radio job at Pittsburgh.

As his family despaired that he might not ever do anything right, he lost that job and most of the others that followed. High turnover apparently is common in the industry. Then, too, Limbaugh has trouble keeping his personal opinion -- sometimes a rather strong opinion -- out of his broadcasts, even when -- or maybe especially when -- he was just reading the news.

Eventually he gave up radio entirely and took a sales job with the Kansas City Royals. Five years later, at 32, he concluded that job too was a dead-end, not a place where he could be noticed and taken seriously.

He was out of work for a while. Then he got on at a Kansas City radio station as a newsreader, though his tendency to slip commentary into his broadcasts again annoyed his bosses. But Bruce Marr, a broadcast consultant, saw potential in Limbaugh's irreverence, and recommended him to the Sacramento station that had fired Downey.

The station invited him to take over Downey's talk show, and suddenly emerged such features as "Peace Update," "Animal Rights Update," and, of course, Limbaugh's "Condom Update," in which he rails against schools passing out condoms to students almost as much as he does against abortion.

"Why not set up little bordellos in the schools?" he asks. "Little rooms with double beds and clean sheets every day... Why not leave them a pack of Marlboros for after the event? Maybe a half line of coke, rather than a full line so we can make sure we don't overdo this..."

Suddenly it all came together. Limbaugh became the top radio show host in town because, as he says, for the first time somebody allowed him to be himself.

At length Ed McLaughlin, an independent producer-distributor and former head of ABC network radio, recognized that Limbaugh was an original talent. He dropped him into the New York market. The rest is radio history, even though Limbaugh found himself living in New York where felt like the Lone Ranger.

There's more. Republican media guru Roger Ailes helped him develop a late-night TV talk show, largely without guests, and though the move seems to be still evolving his ratings quickly topped David Letterman and Arsenio Hall.

Limbaugh sees an upward path ahead.

"I think there's a major cultural war going on, and I happen to be on the right side of the war," he says. "My value base is right in line with that of the vast majority of Americans, but the entertainment value of the show is such that even those who disagree listen."

You can see why the liberals don't like him (maybe even fear him). From his book:

* "It is one of Limbaugh's Undeniable Truths that the more entitlement programs that are created by the Utopia industry, the poorer this county is going to get. Because trying to eliminate poverty and create Utopia by transferring wealth is an impossible quest. It is led by a group of blind, well-intentioned people whose worth in life is wrapped up in doing what they consider good works but which solve nothing. At the heart of the Utopian philosophy is the belief that man lacks the intelligence to solve his own problems. The Utopian has no faith in human ingenuity or man's ability to triumph over the odds in life. This is their justification for big government."

* "Soon tax eaters will outnumber tax producers in our society. What about feeling sorry for those who are living, who pay taxes? Those are the people NO ONE ever feels sorry for. They are asked to give and give until they have no more to give. And when they say, 'Enough!' they are called selfish."

* "Let me leave you with a thought that most honestly summarizes my sentiments: I love the women's movement... especially when I am walking behind it."

In his book he credits his father with his political philosophy: "Because of failing health he never heard me host a talk show until 1989 when my national show was picked up by KZIM in our hometown. He died on Dec. 8, 1990. It wasn't until the final year of his life that I was able to convince him I was going to do just fine. I think the moment came during my first appearance on ABC's "Nightline" on Nov. 8, 1990.

"There I was on national television discussing the deployment of troops to the Persian Gulf with Ted Koppel and syndicated columnist Mark Shields. No jokes (Dad didn't see anything funny about politics and always thought I was distracting from my true abilities when I ventured into irreverence), just serious discussion of the issues. My mother told me the next day what his reaction was."

"He just turned and stared at me and said, 'Millie, where did he learn all that? Where did he get it from?' He was just so proud. I wish you could have seen his smile."

"Well, I learned it from you, Dad. I got it from you. I'm just so happy you finally realized it."

In a remarkably frank profile, Vanity Fair called him "an unlikely amalgam of sober political discourse and loony comedy, hard-right in its world-view but rock 'n roll in its rhythms."

Critics, among them Larry King, call him a zealot. Limbaugh responds: "Of course I'm dangerous to their mission." And he's proud of it.

When feminist multiculturalists insisted that (it was) Columbus's wife who deserved credit for finding the New World, because Columbus wouldn't ask for directions or some such nonsense, Limbaugh had fun. He railed, "First the femi-Nazis say European males are the problem, then they say the first feminist sent the problem here!"

When the New York Times ran an article suggesting dolphins are smarter than people, Limbaugh ranted, "Oh yeah? Show me a hospital they've built, a highway they've constructed, a car they've invented."

Ted Koppel, a regular listener if not exactly a fan, says Limbaugh is "something of an icon to millions of conservative listeners... He is his own personality, he is the show. ... He is very smart, he does his homework. He is well informed. And you ignore him at your peril."

His younger brother David, a Cape Girardeau lawyer, says the bombastic Limbaugh is actually a shy person off the air -- or he was growing up. Limbaugh, a pudgy, not-so-great athlete and not exactly a scholar, admits he was never part of the in-crowd.

"Radio has allowed him to come out of his shell... but he changes when that mike goes off," David Limbaugh told Vanity Fair.

Success magazine quotes Radio and Records magazine as saying: "There must be 200 radio stations that are still on the air because of Rush."

The publication reports that Limbaugh's radio audience has an average household income of $55,735. An adult audience, 83% have attended college, one-fifth have been in graduate school. His television audience is also upscale with most adult viewing earning more than $40,000 a year. The educational level of the audience surpasses David Letterman's audience.

Success quotes him on entrepreneurship vs. entitlement: "What has made America great? The freedom to compete. To achieve greatness. To succeed. Instead of worrying about who gets which piece of the pie, remember this: The entrepreneurial free market that America invented releases human innovation and creates wealth."

Award-winning NASA physicist Dr. Robert Jastrow praises Limbaugh for his skill at "conveying profound concepts in simple, credible ways, using parables and anecdotes, like the great moral philosophers. Rush is a pedagogical genius."

Or to put it more simply, just read the bumper sticker, "Rush is right."