John Y. Brown, III: On Rush Limbaugh

“Rush”

Think of it.

The person that would chose to identify himself with this crashing, jarring adjective would be a person more naturally aligned with the showmanship of Barnum & Bailey than with the thoughtful commentary of, say, McNeill/Lehrer.

Which is why I didn’t consider Rush calling a young lady a “slut” reason enough to be up in arms.

When Rush is not attempting to offend and provoke, he is committing a form of carnival malpractice. That is his venue and his point….to shock, inflame, and thrust through his enemy….but we forget

Rush is not really a gladiator. He is more of a vaudevillian. He is like an immobile and aging warrior who has become a form of public curiosity by his knack for squeezing all of his internal frustrations to the pointy tip of his tongue. We want to watch and hear what that looks and sounds like. So we watch Rush, the secluded man in a cage, so it seems, talk to himself on his jerky webcam. And gladly pay. It is the “Bearded Lady” except instead of a physical oddity breaching the bounds of human decency it is the “Shouting Man” who seems almost crazed at times and who with his eruptive personal pronouncements against perceived enemies breaches the bounds of human decency in a different way.

Rush is like The Fool in King Lear, who babbles and observes and talks incessantly to himself but is listened to by others as a form entertainment. But in this modern Act some in our society have confused The Fool for Lear. Rush is not the king. He is the king’s fool. A court jester. And so he can be relied upon to say foolish things…as fools and court jesters are want to do. And to do so with regularity and alacrity. 

And so, for most of the world—calling a young lady we disagree with a “slut and a prostitute” would be considered bad form. Perhaps even a mistake worthy of an apology. But that is beside the point.

For Rush, such commentary is part of what he does. Like Beavis and Butthead’s grunting and nervous giggling and making odd noises. It’s his shtick. Perhaps it has become part of who Rush is as a person, but that, too, is beside the point for the purposes of this discussion.

Which brings us back to the original point. In my view, the shocking part isn’t when Rush calls one of us he happens to disagree with a crude and defaming name. The shocking thing is when we, the public, respond like a circus audience—promoting Rush’s importance, his gravitas, and yes, his ratings as thought he were a circus master allowing us to eat from his own hand.