![]() In 2001, Limbaugh suffered hearing loss due to an autoimmune inner ear disease. “ Hannity isn’t even close to me.”īut he did have some personal setbacks. “I have no competitors,” Limbaugh told The Times in 2008. President Ronald Reagan dubbed him the”Number One voice for conservatism” in the country.” Limbaugh even had a brief stint on television, hosting a talk show from 1992 to 1996 produced by the late Roger Ailes. Limbaugh found immense success, and quickly became the king of talk-radio. Rosenwald added, “This is a guy who had been a DJ, gotten fired four times in the ’70s but he took the high jinks from those DJs at times and infused it into a topical talk show where he was sort of applying it to the values that he had gotten at the dinner table from his father growing up.” ![]() “No one had heard anything like it before,” Brian Rosenwald, author of “Talk Radio’s America,” told Boston Public Radio Station WBUR in 2019. In 1988, when Limbaugh’s show became nationally syndicated, he moved to New York to broadcast from WABC. From there, Limbaugh developed “The Rush Limbaugh Show.” He struck success, doing well in the ratings and earning the attention of Ed McLaughlin, the former head of ABC Radio. Things changed when he moved to Sacramento, California, to work at KFBK-AM in 1984. Limbaugh also struggled in his personal life, having divorced two women in a span of 10 years. He struggled to find a stable career in radio, working at various stations, including as a top-40 DJ. Limbaugh eventually attended Southeast Missouri State University for a year before dropping out. In the Boy Scouts I never got a single merit badge. “My father expected me to be a professional man,” Limbaugh told The Times. Limbaugh’s father demanded he attend college, but Limbaugh had little interest. When he was 16 years old Limbaugh enrolled in a summer course on radio engineering and earned a broadcaster’s license. Limbaugh’s younger brother, David Limbaugh, is a lawyer and conservative commentator.įrom a young age, Limbaugh was interested in a career in radio. His father, Limbaugh Jr., was a prominent Republican activist. Rush Hudson Limbaugh III was born in Cape Girardeau, Missouri, to Rush Hudson Limbaugh Jr. ‘No one had heard anything like it before’ But in my heart and soul, I know I have become the intellectual engine of the conservative movement.” ![]() I don’t walk around thinking about my power. “I take the responsibility that comes with my show very seriously,” Limbaugh told the newspaper. The missive was classic Limbaugh, who built a career on expressing strong distrust of the established press order and referred to himself as “America’s Anchorman.”ĭespite his penchant for pushing conspiracy theories and peddling misinformation that benefited Trump and the other political figures he supported over the years, Limbaugh acknowledged the weight of his words in a 2008 interview with The New York Times. He also drew backlash at the outset of the pandemic when he dismissed the coronavirus as the “common cold” and contended that it was being “weaponized” by members of the mainstream press to bludgeon Trump and harm his re-election chances. More recently, Limbaugh appeared to approve of some forms of political violence in the immediate aftermath of the January 6 insurrection at the US Capitol. And, in the last few years, he peddled “deep state” conspiracy theories, providing cover for President Donald Trump, who he counted as a friend. He relentlessly attacked President Barack Obama, going as far as to fan the flames of birtherism, the discredited idea that Obama was born outside the United States and therefore not eligible to be President. Fox of exaggerating his Parkinson’s disease and apologized when he a insulted law school student Sandra Fluke. Limbaugh offered a conditional apology after he accused actor Michael J. During the course of his career, Limbaugh started a number of fires with his commentary. Using his sizable platform, Limbaugh advanced conservative ideas, though he often waded into conspiratorial waters and generated controversy for hateful commentary on gender and race.
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