all right just relaying again in case
you have not heard that rush limbaugh
at 70 years old has died he was battling
lung cancer
uh the worst level of lung cancer you
you could possibly battle
uh he was a champion of conservative
causes and and you know revolutionize
the media industry
by at least paying attention to those
causes
and earning a lot of controversy in the
process but
uh there was no don't really quite like
rush and whether you agreed or disagreed
he
made talk radio very very entertaining
uh he had a knack with words and a knack
for for
joining disparate events and explaining
them ways uh
his audience would understand and
appreciate and those
even who were not his fans admired
mightily
uh it says something of his passing that
all the major news networks are noting
it
and saying at the very least he was a
very
effective communicator and if you're on
the other side of the political fence a
worthy
and very stimulating and articulate foe
david asmr my colleague and good friend
uh has studied that career and studied
the impact of conservative thought which
if you think about it dave
really began with with rush limbaugh
mainstreaming it
um and in a way that you could argue
similarly built you know the channel
we're at fox business fox news what have
you
that at least give it an ear give it
more attention until then it had been
sort of pushed aside
what do you think well he was he was
good friends with roger ailes who really
started
fox news uh 24 years ago and
and but before that he had already come
on the scene
uh i i first met him uh when i worked at
the wall street journal when i was op-ed
editor at the wall street journal back
in the mid-1990s
uh he came over and you know the wall
street journal editorial page deals with
a lot of sophisticated
monetary policy and economic policy and
such
uh you're more likely to see larry
kudlow on that page than you are
rush limbaugh but what he did was
translate
the very dense stuff that we were
dealing with in economic policy and put
it in
everyday language that folks on the
radio could hear when they were driving
to and from work and then back at home
he had a way of of taking
very complex material and putting it in
simple without simplifying it but
putting in straightforward
terms always with the notion that the
way americans dealt with these policies
the way americans
used this information was unique because
of the freedoms that we have here and he
always
connected everything that he values that
we as americans share
that was that was what cut to the heart
i think of of his philosophy and his
message
on the radio and i've never seen anybody
do it there's a there was an old sailor
saying when i was a freelance writer uh
that it's easier
to write a 5 000 word piece for the
atlantic monthly than it is to write a
500 word piece for reader took a very
complex subject
and boiled it down into its essence uh
and it's americanism
in a way that nobody nobody has been
able to do
you know i'm david and you've dealt with
your share of issues that come up in
life and very brave and
how you've handled that and your family
um so i i
tend not to look even so much at the
politics uh left to right of someone
as to how they handle things that don't
always go as planned
um and his you know bravery through
lung cancer which is is is one of the
more troublesome
you know cancers of all and a stage four
lung cancer at that
and his willingness to to keep going
through the show
as long as he could he only you know
stopped doing on a regular basis i
believe in the last couple of weeks at
that
uh and and to maintain that with a
smile a wink and a nod and a little rib
here and there
um i i always say we're judge a lot in
life not how we handle the things that
go well but the things that don't
and and there i think liberals and
conservatives could readily agree
uh he he he he was bravery in spades
how do you think of how he handled all
of this i think i think you just said it
perfectly and you mentioned me
i mean you've known your share of
adverse conditions and always handled it
with grace and and
with a sense of humor i think rush rush
did exactly the same you know his
brother david and our sympathies go out
to his entire family to his wife
his brother david has written a number
of books uh about these subjects about
how
you know why is it that if if god has
ultimate power why does he make us
force us to suffer through some of the
things we do uh
and his answer i think is probably the
answer you hear from a lot of people who
deal with this this difficult subject is
that
these are tests uh that that really do
test our spirit and test our soul
and uh sometimes i think if we make the
best of a bad situation we can find out
that it increases the value of our life
i think rush
limbaugh understood that and he used
the the physical adversity that he had
in order to become a better human being
and i i could see that happening
he mentioned it from time to time he
didn't like to talk a lot about his
his ailment on on radio in fact he would
always say that before he did
sometimes he felt required to because
his audience
was so concerned about him uh but when
he did it was
quite clear that what you said neil that
that the the way to handle these things
very often goes against your initial
reflex
reflection of of wow that hurts or
gee why did it have to happen to me he
never got into that
why did it have to happen to me
situation
by the way he was obviously a heavy
smoker he smoked a lot of cigars he used
to
speak glowingly about good cigars and
and that was
undoubtedly related to his lung cancer
but because that's a spiral that if you
get caught in it
drags you right down uh instead he rose
above it and i think uh
i think was a better man because of it
you know a lot of people have talked
about his closeness with donald trump
didn't start out that way as an early
candidate i don't think it was
instantaneous as it wasn't for many in
the
conservative community because donald
trump was not
you know fitting with that type um but
he later on to be
got to be one of his fiercest defenders
and i'm i'm wondering if that was was
very instrumental
say what you will of president trump and
rallying support for a lot of his
causes that the tax cuts the cutting
regulations and the rally of party that
was fractured
certainly now very fractured um around
this notion that
this is something that is in our
conservative dna
tax cuts cutting regulations the other
stuff not so much
and and that was something that that now
is a gaping void and i'm wondering how
that
how that moves beyond rush limbaugh now
well i
i wouldn't call it a void because of
rush limbaugh and he he knew
about his influence and he did have
extraordinary influence and as
as i mentioned i first met him 30 years
ago when he was
he came to the wall street journal
editorial page and was interested in
finding ways of
constantly trying to to make it fit into
his medium and
and with his audience uh but he also
reached out you know whenever he was
on vacation or or was sick and couldn't
couldn't do his radio show
he would also get some young talents
people like mark stein for example who
would
uh substitute for him and and he was
always looking out for other voices of
course sean hannity
owes a lot of his success to to russia