Rush Limbaugh: An Army of One (31 page)

The demise of Air America coincided with another survey. Public Policy, a Democratic-leaning polling company, found that Fox News was the
only
television news organization trusted by a plurality of the public. The media establishment was shocked and outraged, but Limbaugh, the Godfather of the Fox approach (and an increasingly frequent guest on its air), was delighted. Fox, like Rush, had been singled out by the White House as an unreliable source of information. The Public Policy poll was sweet vindication. Somewhere Big Rush, who had eaten his dinner cursing at Dan Rather on the nightly news, was smiling.

Meanwhile, everything seemed to be going wrong for Obama and the Democrats. Brown’s victory imperiled the prospect of real health care reform along liberal lines. The terrible numbers on global warming, coupled with one of the worst prolonged snowstorms in recent American history, made the passage of cap-and-trade legislation highly improbable. Unemployment remained extremely high and Obama offered no solution. A big majority of the public disagreed with Attorney General Eric Holder’s decision to read Miranda rights to the man accused of attempting to blow up a plane over Detroit. Senator Chuck Schumer, one of Obama’s stalwart supporters, pushed back against the president’s proposal to hold the trial of Khalid Sheikh Mohammed and other 9/11 hijackers in downtown Manhattan. The prison in Guantánamo was still open, despite Obama’s promise to shut it. “The fact that Obama’s agenda has totally failed this year is the best thing that could have happened to this country,” he told an interviewer on Fox. “I thank God it is going down the tubes” (the agenda, presumably, not the country). In one year, Limbaugh had gone from hoping the president would fail to declaring he had.

Rush celebrated in Las Vegas, where he served as a judge at the Miss America pageant and stole the show by winning the judges’ dance contest with some strenuous moves to Lady Gaga’s “Poker Face.” Then he flew back to the Southern Command and right into a new controversy.

White House chief of staff Rahm Emanuel, it was reported by
The Wall Street Journal
, had lashed out at liberals in his own party, calling them “fucking retarded” for their all-or-nothing approach to health care reform and the threats of some interest groups to run against Blue Dogs who weren’t supporting the legislation. Sarah Palin, who has a mentally handicapped child, denounced Emanuel’s use of the word “retarded” and called on him to apologize or resign. Limbaugh saw this as a fine opportunity to make fun of Emanuel. “What did the politically correct language police want from the guy?” Rush asked with mock innocence. All poor Rahm had done was tell the truth, “calling a bunch of people [i.e., liberal Democrats] ‘retards,’ who
are
retards.”

The joke blew up in Rush’s face. It sounded like he was dissing Palin as “politically correct,” and using “retard” as a putdown in the same way Emanuel had. When reporters asked her why she wasn’t going after Limbaugh as she had the White House chief of staff, she lamely said that name-calling is always wrong and, besides, Rush was just being satirical. Governor Palin clearly didn’t want to get into a fight with the one man in America who could end her national aspirations in a few sentences. Besides, Governor Palin is a lifelong Dittohead (years ago her father ran into Limbaugh at a golf tournament and requested an autograph for his daughter).

Rush’s influence on Palin was apparent in her speech to the inaugural meeting of the Tea Party movement in early February. Her talking points were orthodox Limbaughism—a call for low taxes, small government, domestic energy drilling, a muscular foreign policy based on national interest, and American exceptionalism. Even her best jibes at Obama (“a charismatic guy with a teleprompter”) and his policies (“how’s that ‘hopey-changey stuff’ working out for you?”) were lifted from Rush’s routine. Predictably he loved the speech and even compared the governor to Ronald Reagan.

Palin was very careful in Nashville to make clear her opposition to turning the Tea Party movement into a political party. Limbaugh adamantly opposes third parties on the right (“that’s how Democrats win,” he said after the speech). The conservative mission was to reclaim control of the GOP from the moderates and compromisers and then lead a unified party to victory in November and beyond.

On Super Bowl Sunday, Limbaugh hosted his annual Super Bowl party. He and his thirty-six guests sat sipping 1961 vintage Château Latour and firing up cigars from Rush’s vast humidor when President Obama appeared on the giant theater screen in his viewing room for a pregame interview with Katie Couric. Obama invited Republicans to a health care summit at the White House at the end of February. “I want to come back and have a large meeting with Republicans and Democrats to go though, systematically, all the best ideas that are out there and move forward,” the president said.

The next day, Limbaugh called the invitation a trap. His “I hope he fails” rejection of Democratic outreach had been a winning political strategy for more than a year, and Rush called on Republicans to stay the course. “Don’t be afraid of the media calling you the ‘party of no,’” he counseled his listeners, who include every Republican in the country who hopes to win election this fall. “We
need
to be the party of ‘no.’ We need to be the party of
hell
no.”

In mid-February, John McCain announced he intended to reprise the 1994 Contract with America with a new set of 10 Republican Promises to American voters. Limbaugh didn’t care for the idea. What kinds of promises could a moderate like McCain make? He advised even hard-core conservatives, including members of the Tea Party movement, to refrain from offering ideological programs or electoral pledges on the grounds that these would only foster internal Republican disunity and confuse voters. Limbaugh offered a simpler formula. “My ten promises to the voters in 2010? The Bill of Rights. The Constitution of the United States. That’s the only document we need.” Specifics to come, of course, every weekday at noon Eastern Standard Time on your AM radio dial.

I
have been in the book-writing business a long time, but I was amazed to discover that almost no New York publisher wanted a book about Rush Limbaugh that didn’t have the word “idiot” or “liar” in the title. A friend in the business explained it to me. “I have to go out for lunch in this city every day.” Luckily I found an editor, Adrian Zackheim, who doesn’t care about lunch. He and his extremely talented assistant, Courtney Young, have been steady partners in this project, and I am very appreciative.

Warm thanks, as always, go to Flip Brophy of Sterling Lord Literistic. Somehow she keeps me working, which is the highest compliment an author can pay to an agent.

The world of Rush Limbaugh is not an easy one to enter. HR “Kit” Carson, Rush’s executive producer, decided, for some reason, to help me and provided a portal into Limbaugh-land. He arranged my first trip to Palm Beach, got me a front-row seat at CPAC, let me hang around Limbaugh’s New York studio, sent me photos and transcripts from programs past, and generally helped me understand the history and trajectory of the
Limbaugh Show
. Other members of the staff were also very helpful. Thanks to Dawn, Cathy, Brian, Michael, and James Golden, aka “Bo Snerdley.” Many of the song parodies and skits on
The Rush Limbaugh Show
are written (or cowritten) and performed by comedian Paul Shanklin. I want to thank him for giving me permission to quote from his work.

David Limbaugh was extremely generous during my stay in Cape Girardeau. He took time to show me the town—and the Limbaughs’ boyhood—through his eyes. He is a pundit in his own right, and I very much appreciate his insights into the conservative movement and his brother’s place in it.

In the course of my research I talked with literally hundreds of people who have known Rush—boyhood friends; colleagues in Pittsburgh, Kansas City, Sacramento, New York, and Florida; members of his wide professional and personal circle; and people who have had interesting encounters with him. I can’t mention them all, but I do want to give special thanks (alphabetically) to Nick Adams, Roger Ailes, Michael Barone, George Brett, Bryan Burns, Ann Coulter, Bill Figenshu, Jim and Frank Kinder, Mary Matalin, Frank Nickell, David Rosow, Karl Rove, the late Tim Russert, Dr. Jan Seebaugh, Rabbi Nathan Segal, Dr. Steve Stumwasser, and Joel Surnow. I also benefited from the advice and thoughts of Elizabeth Bland, David Brooks, Lisa De Pasquale, Charles Dunn, Susan Estrich, Ira Glass, Michael Harrison, Nicholas Lemann, Mark Jurkowitz, Mark McKinnon, Chuck Martin, Jay Nordlinger, Brett O’Donnell, Jeff Roteman, Al Sharpton, Nick Trautwein, and Vivian Turner.

 

 

 

Being written about is an invasive procedure, especially for someone as private and (and as media wary) as Rush. Rush had reservations about a Limbaugh book not written by Limbaugh, but he eventually came around and was cooperative and candid. I asked him hundreds of questions in person, via e-mail, and over the phone, many of which he answered promptly and (with a couple insignificant exceptions) on the record. Even more important, he never told me anything about his life that didn’t check out.

Limbaugh is a man who speaks for himself, and I have tried to let readers hear his voice as much as possible. Radio talking isn’t as smooth as writing, and I sometimes cut out a repeated word or irrelevant digression, often using ellipses, sometimes not. But in no case has this changed his basic message.

As always I want to thank my wife, Lisa Beyer, who is also my best friend and my best reader, and my kids, Michal, Charley, Shmuelik, Coby, and Annie for their support, forbearance, and occasional reminders that I am not the smartest man in the room.

Pew reports that “readers of news magazines, political magazines and business magazines, listeners of Rush Limbaugh and NPR, and viewers of the
Daily Show
and C-SPAN are also much more likely than the average person to have a college degree.” And in a “general knowledge test in which ‘media consumers’ were asked to identify the majority party in the House of Representatives, the U.S. Secretary of State and the Prime Minister of Great Britain,” the Dittoheads scored twice the national average at 36 percent—less than NPR listeners (44 percent) but higher than the audience of the
Colbert Report
, the
Daily Show
, the
PBS News Hour
, BBC News, CNN, all three network news shows, and C-SPAN.

Pew also measures the percentage of those who are, by its definition, consumers of “hard news” (as opposed to human interest features, daily horoscopes, sports, and so forth). “Most news organizations attract a wide range of news consumers, including the hard-news core and those who are less interested in such news. But some stand out for their high proportion of hard news viewers and readers. Among the regular audiences for broadcast programs, Rush Limbaugh’s radio show (56% attentive), the Sunday morning interview programs (52%), the
NewsHour
(52%), the
O’Reilly Factor
(49%), and
Larry King Live
(48%) have especially large numbers of hard-news consumers.”

One of the best studies of academic imbalance was published in 2005 by Professor S. Robert Lichter of George Mason University, who heads the Center for Media and Public Affairs, and two colleagues, Professors Stanley Rothman of Smith College and Neil Nevitte of the University of Toronto. They found that, among 1,643 full-time faculty at 183 four-year schools, 72 percent of these faculty members defined themselves as “liberal,” 15 percent as conservative. Fifty percent identified as Democrats, 11 percent as Republicans. At the most elite schools, the gap was greater: 87 percent liberal, 13 percent conservative. The most liberal faculties, the study’s authors found, were in the humanities (81 percent) and social sciences (75 percent). In departments of English literature, philosophy, political science, and religious studies, at least 80 percent of the faculty called themselves liberals and about 5 percent identified as conservatives. Since 1990, according to the Center for Responsive Politics, the faculties of universities, colleges, and schools have donated to Democratic candidates sums roughly three times greater than they have to Republicans. In 2008, the number was 82 percent.

In 1981, political scientists S. Robert Lichter, Stanley Rothman, and Linda S. Lichter reported the results of their survey of 240 journalists at ABC, CBS, NBC, PBS, the
New York Time
s, the
Washington Post
, the
Wall Street Journal
,
Time
,
Newsweek
, and
U.S. News & World Report.
Going back to 1964, the number who said they voted for the Democratic presidential candidate never went below 80 percent. In the 1964 contest between Johnson and Goldwater, 94 percent voted for Johnson. In 2001, the study was updated. Professors Stanley Rothman and Amy E. Black found that, “three-quarters of elite journalists (76.1 percent) . . . voted for Michael Dukakis in 1988, and even larger percentages (91.3 percent) . . . cast ballots for Bill Clinton in 1992.” Neither Dukakis nor Clinton got anywhere near a majority of the general vote. The Freedom Forum’s poll of Washington bureau chiefs and congressional correspondents found similar trends. A Freedom Forum poll of Washington bureau chiefs and congressional correspondents found 89 percent had voted for Clinton in the 1992 election, compared with 7 percent for President Bush and 2 percent for Ross Perot. The
Minneapolis Star Tribune
summed it up: “In no state or region, among no race or class, did support for Clinton predominate more lopsidedly than among this sample of 139 journalists who either cover Congress or head a Washington bureau.” Elaine Povich, the study’s director, tried to make the case that this didn’t necessarily mean the Democratic press had favored the Democratic candidates just because they all happened to be Democrats: “One of the things about being a professional is that you attempt to leave your personal feelings aside as you do your work.”