Recently Rush Limbaugh passed away. I had prepared a rather lengthy posting about him but did not post it because of his cancer and ultimate passing. However, I will not let his passing abrogate my opinion of him nor let his passing somehow excuse his actions for any type of legacy.
Let me say it as plainly as I can. Rush Limbaugh was a liar, he lied on a daily basis in his broadcast, and that was not his worse trait. And before you defend his lying remember his broadcasts are available for fact-checking and I will defend my statement. Pick a day, any day, and I will fact-check his broadcast and I will find lies in his broadcast. Why? Because he could not help himself. Even when he could have got his point across by telling the truth, he could not help himself in embellishing it. I remember when he first started his broadcasts and I listened to him (in order to get another prospective) and it because obvious that when he was backed in a corner he would do a “this is just in” and rattle a piece a paper and lie his ass off. Did you ever wonder why his television show did not work? It is obvious. His stunts and body language did not sell on TV.
But like I said, that was not his worse trait. Even if everything he ever said was the truth, he was a mean, nasty, wrong-spirited individual. He was what is often called a rabble-rouser. If he had been saying the same type of things he was saying and he was a Liberal, there would have been demands to have him shut down and possibly incarcerated for inciting insurrection. But instead, he used his tenuous embrace of Freedom of Speech to expound his version of hatred. I say his embrace of Freedom of Speech was tenuous because he did not believe in that freedom for anyone who did not agree with him. His freedom was to dance on an almost daily basis with the Gods of misogyny, racism, xenophobia, and any other form of hatred from his WASP followers. If the Proud Boys, KKK, and such did not listen to him on a daily basis I would be sorely surprised unless it was the fact that he did not go far enough for them.
In short, the passing of anyone diminishes us all but Rush Limbaugh off the airways automatically infuses a little bit of fresh air.
