The cutting edge of societal evolution.’ That was one of Rush Limbaugh’s catchphrases in the 1990s, and it was an apt description of a man who revolutionized radio and politics alike. Limbaugh has now died at age 70, but the societal evolution that he accelerated continues. This is why Limbaugh will still be loved by the right and hated by the left for years to come.
Rush was a media powerhouse in his own right as a radio host, but he was also the grandfather of Fox News. Ever since the Nixon years conservatives had thought that there could be a mass audience for their message, one large enough to support a television network. Efforts to create one, or buy one of the existing networks, all fell flat, however. There was an established market for the conservative intellectual gadfly, a William F. Buckley Jr or a George Will or, from the libertarian wing, a Milton Friedman. Men like these had syndicated columns and space in magazines like Newsweek. Buckley’s Firing Line was a PBS success. The McLaughlin Group, along with Robert Novak and Pat Buchanan as mainstays of the early CNN, showed that conservative commentary could thoroughly reinvigorate the old political chat-show formats, where reporters kvetched with one another and guests from the world of officialdom about the day’s news. But these all served as conservative contrarians within liberal institutions. Buckley had an institution of his own, National Review, but NR didn’t reach millions the way television, radio and the major newspapers and magazines did.
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