Rush Limbaugh's speech

7:06 PM—We are sitting in the Detroit airport waiting for our 9:15 flight on home to Indy, with no free Wi Fi available, contrary to what I had expected. So I am forced once again to go ahead and post what I wanted to this evening, but just to wait several hours to actually get it up on the blog.
I might as well cut the chase and go straight to my impressions of Rush Limbaugh in person. Again, you can sneer if you want, but I’ll say it anyway: I don’t consider myself a celebrity hound, by this point in my life; in other words, I don’t look goggly-eyed at someone just because they are famous or have a measure of renown and for no other reason. Nonetheless, seeing Rush Limbaugh speak represented the definite fulfillment of one of those items that I’d classify in a section headed “I’d love for it to happen, but I doubt it ever will.” I have listened to Rush Limbaugh for going on 16 years now, and I still remember where I was (on a farm in Mifflinburg, Pennsylvania) when I first heard those one-of-a-kind “vocal vibrations.” I was talking later to Jed about what I’m about to say next, something that I find more and more difficult to comprehend the longer I live. Those of us who love Rush are endlessly excoriated and belittled by those who don’t as mind-numbed robots whom he drags around by the nose. Why is this? I think, at one point anyway, Howard Stern’s listenership might have been numerically similar to Rush’s. Howard Stern is someone whose viewpoints on most issues (I’m presuming here, since I’ve never listened to a second of his show) and certainly, whose values couldn’t be more antithetical to my own. Contrary to what is true for Rush, I would say that Stern and the lifestyle he advocates, by default at least, are actually dangerous to the well-being of the country. Yet, I would never argue that his listeners, even the majority of them, are lacking in intelligence or so enthralled by Stern’s persona that they don’t think for themselves. My hunch is this: Rush actually makes a positive difference in those of who have listened to him for a long period of time. He stirs us to action. Listening to Rush Limbaugh, for me, has not been an activity that has occurred in a vacuum. Because of starting to listen to Rush at age 18, I have read and/or purchased books and/or columns by the likes of George Will, Thomas Sowell, Shelby Steele, Walter Williams and countless others. Along an ancillary line, Rush has enabled the rise of Glenn Beck, who has broadened our horizons by exposing us to recent works such as The 5000 Year Leap by Cleon Skousen and Meltdown by Thomas Woods, Jr. and renewed our interest in the Founding Fathers. This educational process then threatens those who hold opposing views and want to see policies implemented that are in opposition to what we support. Of course, then, their goals are inhibited by an educated public. So they resort to the tactics that come naturally to them anyway: ad hominem attacks and name calling.
Well, they can try all they want, but they’ll never succeed. You would think the naysayers would just pack it in after an unparalleled 20 years of record-level accomplishments, but they keep engaging in their mean-spiritedness, which just reinforces the determination of Rush’s fans. So, as the kids say today, “It’s all good!”
Rush was supposed to start at 5:00, but after a hilarious introduction by conference organizer Lisa de Pasquale, (who was invited to listen to Rush for the first time in 1994 as a 16-year-old in the automobile of a boy on whom she had a crush at the time, so her tag line was “I can say I was introduced to Rush Limbaugh in the backseat of a car”) Rush bounded onto the stage at 4:45 to absolutely thunderous and sustained applause that probably went on for close to 2 minutes. To say it was pure electricity doesn’t do it justice.
Rarely have I ever seen such a stellar example of “under promising and over delivering” as we were privy to who were in the audience. Rush came out early, and was scheduled to speak for 20 minutes. He spoke for 90! And I think he could have gone on even longer.
Impressions: He had a few notes at the podium, but used no prompter, which he himself pointed out for the benefit of the “Drive-bys.” The notes he did have must have amounted to just a few words here and there, and he probably only looked at them 5 or 6 times in the whole hour and a half, just to remind himself of what he wanted to say. If you are a listener to his program, you would have noticed different characteristics coming through as he spoke, including the imitations of different personality types, though he didn’t do any Clinton mimicking. (Joe Scarborough did a couple times during his brief speech on Thursday and it was pretty good.)
Rush was clearly fearful because of something Dave Keene and Lisa de Pasquale had told him backstage before he came out for the speech, and he communicated his reservations to the crowd. He said he had been informed that this year, it was almost as if being out of power had freed people up and they felt they didn’t have to hold back anymore from expressing certain opinions. He indicated that this was understandable, but said that we really do not want to be a permanent minority and it might become too easy to get used to exactly that!
Rush also addressed head-on the “mysterious anger of the Drive-by media” over his stated wish that Obama fails. I had heard him discuss this on his show a number of times, but never this directly and concisely. Basically, why should he want him to do anything other than fail if success for the implementation of his programs equates to failure for the country? It is a very simple explanation, though tough to swallow for someone with no historical context, which many in the media evidently do not have. (Of course, another Rush truism that comes to my mind, which I often use myself is that “the historical perspective of most people begins with the day they were born.”)
The overarching theme of the speech, in Rush’s own words, would be this: “It breaks my heart that President Obama, with all of the communications skills that he obviously possesses, is using those very gifts to tear down this country and the institutions and practices that have made it great rather than building them up.” Some context is needed for this. Rush is enormously successful financially; I believe his most recent contract, over 8 years, pays him a total of $400 million. Yet, life has not always been so for Rush. In fact, his success came fairly late in life, after a good deal of floundering and stumbling. It is easy for those of us looking on who are young and still making our way in life with some financial difficulties here and there to look at Rush and envy his “luck.” I have owned Rush’s first book The Way Things Ought to Be for many years, but hadn’t cracked the cover in a decade, probably. Just yesterday, I opened it up to Chapter 2, where he tells the story of how his program went national. If you want a real revelation of the GI-NORMOUS risks (plural, not singular) that Rush and Ed McLaughlin (the former ABC executive who sponsored him initially) too in syndicating the program in 1988, you need to read that chapter. I reiterate all of that to say that I can easily understand why Rush and others like him look at the economic pilfering in which the Obama team (and yes, Hank Paulson and his lackeys) have been engaging and become very vocal about it. It undermines everything they have achieved and enabled so many others to do.
Beyond that, though, Rush brought the conference to its feet when he declared that conservatism, first and foremost, is about people; conservatives love people and do not consider them expendable. I believe that this is a core Christian principle, but I have to admit I had never thought of it as a politically conservative tenet, per se. But as with so many concepts, Rush is right once again! We are about the individual, not pitting one group against another.
Rush’s speech ended rather suddenly; I think he realized that it was past 6:00; I think the conference was contractually obligated to conclude then, and perhaps he needed to be back home by a certain time that night. He concluded with a profoundly moving expression of gratitude to the audience for our love and support to him and his family over the years, saying he could never overemphasize what we mean to him. Again, you have to be a fan to understand. Cynics could look on and say, sure, that’s how he makes his money. You can’t really respond to that other than to reply that that misses the point. We wouldn’t be listening if there wasn’t a substantial, quality return on our minutes spent tuned into the show. And isn’t that the case with anything in life to which we commit our resources?
The evening concluded with a presentation to Rush of the “Defender of the Constitution” award: an original document actually signed by Benjamin Franklin. What a great way to conclude CPAC 2009!