Rush to Judgment

Limbaugh's secret sauce

Thomas W. Hazlett from the March 1995 issue

(Page 2 of 2)

Rush is middle-class revenge. He speaks their language, harbors their hopes, believes in their values. He tears through CompuServe to pin down those news stories that reveal the wildest excesses of the politically correct, the most abusive hectoring or denigration of middle-class values. He regales his audience with tales featuring average Americans who buck elitist prejudices to do something great in the marketplace where the country's workers live and dream. (Rush's favorite fable: the rise of Rush Limbaugh to fame and fortune.)

When he is bitterly attacked as a maniac, a hatemonger, or a bigot, it raises his ratings through the roof. Not because he is such things but because he is not, and because his listeners know it. Rush can err factually or philosophically (and we have talked, to good effect, on the former and debated, to good effect, on the latter). But he is not of the lunatic fringe.

Those who place him there are suckered. The litmus test they think they're inflicting is a reverse test which they publicly flunk, oblivious to their score. When the White House bellyaches about Rush's talk-radio forum as mindless, or jokes that he is a racist, the Clintonites signal the marketplace that they, too, are among the enlightened few who know that middle-class attitudes are beyond the pale of decency. This is not exactly where a popularly elected president should strive to be. But it is precisely where Rush Limbaugh flourishes, having the president of the United States as his publicity agent.

Bill's White House geniuses want to create yet another liberal face for Rush to be in. This is a little too generous, given how Bill and Hillary have already boosted Rush's platform several miles higher.

What the Clintonites really need are some slick, arrogant conservatives, perhaps as network news anchors--perhaps three or four. They need a public that has been subjected to incessant holier-than-thou lecturing from the Moral Majority or the American Legion or the National Rifle Association. The need to move Pat Robertson from the 700 Club to ABC World News Tonight. Liberals need to become outsiders again. Then they might lob their missiles at the smug and smarmy establishment--and actually hit someone other than themselves.

As his troops march home from the desert, chuckling, Limbaugh excites an esprit de corps in his audience. Now the Clintonites, if they are to regain their edge, must wander on the outs awhile. The administration's first two years seem like a pretty good start.

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