Years ago, well before his cancer diagnosis, Ira Glass — yes, the Ira Glass of NPR’s “This American Life” — noted to no less than a New York Times reporter that “Rush is just an amazing radio performer.”
Yes, that Rush. Limbaugh, that is.
“Years ago, I used to listen in the car on my way to reporting gigs, and I’d notice that I disagreed with everything he was saying, yet I not only wanted to keep listening, I actually liked him,” Glass said for the 2008 piece. “That is some chops. You can count on two hands the number of public figures in America who can pull that trick off.”
He compared him to Howard Stern, another polarizing radio figure: “A lot of people dismiss them both as pandering and proselytizing and playing to the lowest common denominator, but I think that misses everything important about their shows,” Glass said. “They both think through their ideas in real time on the air. They both have a lot more warmth than they’re generally given credit for. They both created an entire radio aesthetic.”
I really can’t tell you about Stern back in the day, since every time I’ve ever witnessed his schtick before he got serious and political himself — where he has become “both … pandering and proselytizing,” and both in spades — it seemed like I always happened upon Howard’s broadcast circus when he was engaged in some kind of trivia show between a Klansman and a dwarf who was inebriated at 9 a.m. ET. I always thought Stern had better things to do with his time, and I knew I did.
However, for those who never listened to Limbaugh, Glass gets it right on the money about him. There was likability, warmth, character. And not only did he embody those qualities throughout the year, he especially embodied them around Christmastime.
Four years ago, Rush gave the final iteration of “a yearly tradition” — his thankfulness for his audience and what they had done for his life. And he didn’t mean his fame or his ability to make a living; he meant the impact they had upon him as a man.
He was teary, as he was wont to be. Within two months, he would be dead from complications from lung cancer.
The clip will make you tear up a little, as well, if you were one of the people who grew up on — or older with — the man who had talent on loan from God and debated with half his brain behind his back just to make it fair.
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The tribute took place over one of Rush’s favorite Christmas tunes — Mannheim Steamroller’s version of “Silent Night” — and he talked of his “ongoing attempts to thank everybody in the audience, all of you, for everything you mean to me.
“That last call — that reminds me how much I love all of you, how much I so appreciate everything you’ve meant to me and my family,” Limbaugh said, haltingly.
“You don’t have any idea how. I know so many people think this program has changed their lives for the better,” he continued. “You have no idea what you all have meant to me and my family.
“The day’s gonna come, folks, where I’m not gonna be able to do this,” he said from behind the golden EIB microphone. “I don’t know when that is. I want to be able to do it for as long as I want to do it.
“I want to, but the day will come where I’m not going to be able to, and I want you to understand that even when the day comes, I’d like to be here, ’cause I have this sense of needing to constantly show my appreciation for all that you have done and meant to me.
This is Rush Limbaugh’s final Christmas message… he passed a few short weeks later.
A legend was lost when this man went to heaven.
Rest in peace Rush.
pic.twitter.com/8y3KFsnJLz— Gunther Eagleman™ (@GuntherEagleman) December 26, 2024
“So I hope you all have a great Christmas, a great New Year, and I hope that the things that are in store for all of us in the coming year are certainly better than what we have endured in 2020,” he continued.
“I don’t know too many people who’ve enjoyed 2020. There are probably some sickos out there who have,” he added. “But 2021 has to be better. We’re going to try to make it that way here at the EIB Network.
“Again, folks, thank you so much. I wish there were a way to say it other than ‘thank you,’” a misty Limbaugh said. “You’re just the best. My family is just the best. Thank you. Merry Christmas, everybody, from all of us to all of you.”
Limbaugh would pass in February.
It’s hard to think of what Limbaugh would have made of the Joe Biden presidency and the 2024 election. He was, as Glass noted, far more complicated than the stereotype of El Rushbo — a ranting lunatic who found the furthest right position it was tenable to hold and then planted his flag just a touch to the right of that.
He certainly would have opined astutely on one of the greatest media deceptions of all time — “sharp as a tack” Uncle Joe from Scranton — as it happened, as well as celebrated it being exposed along with Biden on a debate stage. He would have taken solace from one of the greatest political comebacks of all time in Donald Trump’s return to the White House. And he would have done it all with humor, grace, and warmth.
We don’t have those words, of course, from the man who became the de facto leader of American conservatives and the undisputed king of radio.
We do have Limbaugh’s parting Christmas message, however. It’s something to remember this season — cherish the family you have, both real and extended. In Rush’s case, it extended much wider than most of us. But, like him, we don’t know how long we’ll have them for — and we should be thankful for them all the same.
Merry Christmas in Heaven, Rush. If you thought you were having more fun than a human being should be allowed to have down here on earth, as you would say, I can’t imagine what it’s like up there.
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