C&B Honor the Founding Father of Conservative Talk Radio
BUCK: We wanted to take a minute or two — or more, of course — first here to have a moment of remembrance. ‘Cause one year ago we lost the Founding Father of conservative talk radio, Rush Limbaugh. As he used to put it, he was “a man, a legend, a way of life,” doing what he was born to do with half his brain “tied behind his back just to make it fair.”
He exercised his “talent on loan from God” for over three decades before succumbing to stage 4 lung cancer last year, a battle he fought right to the end behind the Golden EIB Mic. Rush was larger than life in the radio universe, but he also never wanted to make it about him. He was truly focused on the conservative cause while also having more fun than any “human being should be allowed to have.”
Clay, I remember when we were first told together that we would have the great honor and the great responsibility of just trying to take up the fight, ’cause we both knew right away — we looked at each other and said — there’s no such thing as replacing Rush Limbaugh. He’s the greatest that ever lived, the greatest that will be in this medium of radio. But I remember you looked at me and we said, “We’re gonna do our very best.”
CLAY: That’s exactly right, and I know we’re gonna talk to Kathryn, Rush’s widow, here in a little bit on the show. And over the months that we have been sitting behind a couple of pairs of golden microphones, as you well said, nobody can fill Rush’s shoes, but hopefully each of us can fill one of them. And that was the idea that Julie Talbott had — who made the decision to put us in and had been working with Rush for decades before and doing such a fabulous job.
What she knew and what Rush knew was the battles that he had been fighting were only going to be accelerating in terms of their intensity, and I know many of you out there listening right now are thinking about every time you believe it can’t get crazier, it can’t get wilder than it is right now, over the past year it has. And Rush was maybe the foremost defender of American exceptionalism and the importance of America as a shining city on the hill in the history of media.
He knew that the battles were going to go on long after he was gone — and, frankly, Buck, you and I both know that the battles will go on long after we’re gone too. And what is important is that Rush raised up a generation. I’m sure you’ve met so many of these people in the 10 months or so that we’ve been doing the show, Buck, all over the country who say not only, “I listened for a long time,” but I’m impressed by people who said, “I started listening when I was a young kid, and I grew up with Rush.”
There are a lot of people listening to us right now in their thirties, forties, and fifties — twenties, too — who listened with their parents in the car, who grew up, who had Rush as that constant voice in their ear. And we know that those people out there, one, tremendously missing Rush, but also the battle’s not stopping. And that’s why it was such an honor and a privilege for us to be bequeathed the opportunity to sit behind the golden microphone and talk to this audience that Rush grew over the past three decades.
BUCK: I’m in talk radio because of Rush Limbaugh, and the amazing thing is that there are so many other people — other hosts that folks listening to us now would know — who publicly say the same thing, privately say the same thing that Rush was the one who made it feel so powerful, important, but so connected — made it feel like you could gather together millions of like-minded patriots, conservatives, friends, every day listening all across the country.
There was something deeply special about that. I’ve always said Rush, in that sense, was a force multiplier. We’re sitting here because of the empire of talk radio, of course, that he built. But beyond that, the movement that he really in so many ways was — if not the originator or the creator of — a foremost general, one of the guys who made such a difference for so many. And so we do want to take time today to honor Rush’s legacy and his memory on the one-year anniversary of his passing.
We want to strive to honor that legacy by continuing to do what he would want us to do, to pursue excellence, to be happy warriors, and to live life. We’ve only got one, as he would often remind all of you when you were listening. You remember that. Most of all, to have fun and laugh. You gotta never forget to laugh.
