Rush Limbaugh

On Monday I have a blood donation at 12:30PM, which means a perfect time to catch Rush's first 30 minutes on the drive over.  I don't listen to him much anymore. In the 90s I would take lunch at 11:57, walk out to the car and turn on the radio to 610AM, catching some of his opening monologue as I drifted off to nap, and catching up 45 minutes later as I awoke. He would either be summing up that first topic or moving on to a second important issue.  Fine with me either way.  (As I was sleepy again on my drive home at 4:30 PM or so, you would think that this pattern would fairly scream "sleep disorder!" but I did not perceive this then.  I thought I knew better than all those articles about snoring. The CPAP is now my best friend.)

I do know he has been more supportive of Trump than I have been, but not outrageously so.  He is also more deeply immersed in the media world of what CBS and MSNBC and the Washington Post are saying and thus likely to be more torqued off about those.  He is also following what the major political figures and the main celebrity figures are saying more than I am, and in those cases both more irritated but also more insightful than I.

It seems a perfect time to start catching up.  Trump is now officially gone and whatever Biden is doing deserves scrutiny, which Rush will do while the rest of us are likely to just shrug and say "I just assume he is making excuses for communists and quietly diverting money to his constituent groups." True, but not really a helpful vigilance. I think Rush is still having his brush with death and thus likely even more fearless than usual. He is very skilled at noticing which among the many irritating things happening are of major importance, either for their practical or their symbolic results culturally.

He does overreach at times, usually by applying a generally true rule to a current event too rapidly, without considering alternatives.  But I did find in the past that if one waited long enough, his overreach did turn out to be closer to the reality than other assessments.  So we will see on Monday, and perhaps throughout the week, what the Institute for Advanced Conservative Studies is teaching just now.