The leader of the opposition - political commentator Rush Limbaugh - Cover Story

National Review, Sept 6, 1993 by James Bowman

Certainly the ventures into radio syndication of Howard Stern, Gordon Liddy, Don Imus, and Pat Buchanan (one of the latest to try it is Ronald Reagan's son, Michael) are a testimony to Rush's trailblazing success. But maybe, some of his old admirers would say, he has been too successful. Now that he is beginning to be taken seriously, he may become too respectable to go in for the kind of cutting up which has always made the show so much fun. In the same way, invitations to the White House and appearances on Nightline and Meet the Press undercut his blasts at "the dominant media culture." The source of his appeal back in the days when he developed the show's format in Sacramento between 1984 and 1988, or when he first came to New York to go into syndication out of WABC in the latter year, was his spontaneity, his irreverence. Perhaps his most famous gimmick was the caller abortion - the sound of a vacuum cleaner and a woman's scream in lieu of a normal call termination - which was in splendidly awful taste. He doesn't do that any more, he says, because it takes too long to explain so that people won't take it the wrong way. But there was a time when he didn't care so much about the sensibilities of the sort of people likely to take it the wrong way.

He still does his condom update theme (the Fifth Dimension singing "Up, Up and Away") and his animal-rights update theme (Andy Williams singing "Born Free" to a background of machine-gun fire) and his homeless update theme (Clarence "Frogman" Henry singing the wonderfully wacky Sixties novelty, "Ain't Got No Home"), and he has even introduced a theme for his Carol Moseley Braun updates ("Moving On Up" from the old Jeffersons television show) whose delightful offensiveness made it "Outrage of the Week" for Mark Shields of The Capital Gang. But his reaction to Shields's attack was instructive. Clearly stung by the suggestion that it might be considered racist to make fun of Mrs. Braun's peculiar sort of upward mobility, he defended himself on the air by disclaiming responsibility because he didn't write the song. If anyone's a racist, he said, Norman Lear is for attaching the song to The Jeffersons in the first place. He has also been defensive about the animal-rights and homeless update themes.

Is the class clown starting to care too much what the goody-goodies in the front row think of him? Rush acknowledges that there may be less irreverence these days, but he adds that "that goes in cycles. For the past six months there has been a pretty serious devotion to the Clinton economic plan, and there hasn't been a whole lot of irreverence. I think the show has moved up a couple levels in importance, I think it's a natural evolution of things. But now today, for example - this week - there has been more irreverence and more of an off-the-wall spontaneity and humor than there has been. I don't know why this is; I just follow my instincts. And they've gotten me to where I am now." So far in the era of Clinton, which Rush calls "The Raw Deal," his instincts have apparently continued unerring. Audience figures are up, and the class clown's more than occasional resemblance to an economics lecturer seems not to bother his listeners at all.