At Home On Piety Hill

What kind of hate am I listening to? That was the question I posed and answered in an earlier post. I listen to Rush Limbaugh regularly and I wouldn’t consider his program to be hateful unless sarcasm, analysis of current events, critique of opposing views, parody and the expression of strongly held opinions constitutes “hate.” If that were the case, Rush would be numbered among such notable haters as Garrison Keillor, Mark Twain, Al Franken and Will Rogers. The Simpsons, South Park and Saturday Night Live would be justly condemned as vehicles of bigotry, if Rush’s show is judged to be offensive. Why do I listen to Rush?

First, his show comes on at just the right time, while my hands are busy and my ears and mind are free. He’s the most professional talk-show host out there, regardless of ideology, and he’s generally funnier than the rest of the pack. The fact that Al Franken has enjoyed phenomenal success as a comic writer does not seem to translate to laughs on his radio show, while Rush is much funnier on air than he is in print. Go figure.

I started listening before the Web existed and I tuned in to hear him read news and comment on articles or opinion pieces in publications like the New York Times, Washington Post, The New Republic, The Nation and others. If anything captured my attention, I would go to the library and check out other literature on the subject. His show was a catalyst for me and it still is. He seems to have a real knack for identifying issues and trends which resonate with a vast number of Americans, across a wide spectrum of political or social viewpoints.

This entry was posted on Friday, August 11th, 2006 at 7:26 pm and is filed under Culture, Each and Every, Humor, Media, Politics. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.