Jeffrey Lord marked the fifth anniversary of Rush Limbaugh’s death in his Feb. 21 Media Research Center column:
To say the least, Rush Limbaugh’s impact on both the conservative movement and the nation as a whole was both far reaching and considerable.
Rush, of course, was not alone. He was the heir to a movement that featured such key players as William F. Buckley Jr., R. Emmett Tyrrell Jr., Arizona’s “Mr. Conservative” Senator Barry Goldwater — and, of course, President Ronald Reagan.
Collectively the conservative movement gained considerable steam with the creation of media outlets that brought the movement to public attention.
From Buckley’s National Review to Tyrrell’s American Spectator and on to Rupert Murdoch’s Fox News and Chris Ruddy’s Newsmax, the conservative movement was on the move.
But nowhere was that more vividly illustrated than with the arrival of Rush Limbaugh on the radio. From Monday through Friday, from noon to three, like clockwork Rush was there on the radio, broadcasting to the nation in ways both intellectually demanding and often enough hilarious. Not to mention that it was Rush who essentially created the industry of what quickly became known as “conservative talk radio.”
[…]In short, as the conservative movement gained steam, Rush arrived on the scene to translate the movement from the written pages of Buckley and Tyrrell’s magazines to the widespread use of radio. And Rush was so very, very good at it.
Over time, as noted, he had an audience of some thirty million Americans who listened to him every one of those five days a week.
Interestingly, Lord avoided all mention of the most notorious thing Limbaugh did: spending three days denigrating Sandra Fluke as a “slut” for testifying in favor of birth control at a House hearing. The MRC tried to minimize Limbaugh’s slur by playing whataboutism, and it launched an “I Stand With Rush” defense campaign in response. Lord himself pretended that Limbaugh’s slur didn’t hurt right-wing talk radio as a whole.
And then there was Limbaugh’s likening of the young Chelsea Clinton as the “White House dog,” which MRC writer Noel Sheppard actually tried to defend.
But Lord had nothing to say about any of this; instead, he declared: “Thank you Rush. Your legacy lives on – and always will. Onward!” But LImbaugh’s hate is a part of his legacy, and Lord definitely doesn’t want to talk about that.