Rush Limbaugh (1951–2021)

The Fairness Doctrine Stages a Furious Comeback with the Passing of Rush Limbaugh

The Broadcaster of Hate has passed away. Time to renew the Fairness Doctrine

FEBRUARY 17, 2001 — In a surreal and macabre beginning to his radio show today, his wife, Kathryn, announced Rush Limbaugh’s death today by saying, “I know that I am most certainly not the Limbaugh that you tuned in to listen to today…”

Image: by the amazing DonkeyHotey, CC BY-SA 2.0 <https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/2.0>, via Wikimedia Commons, originally appearing on Flickr at: https://flickr.com/photos/47422005@N04/5337997122 under the same Creative Commons license

Rush Limbaugh, she said, has died of lung cancer.

According to the New York Times, the voice of the far-right gave us such phrases as “feminazis,”, in describing women’s rights advocates, “compassion fascists,” in describing homeless advocates, and “tree-hugging wackos,” in describing environmentalists¹. Many of these phrases entered the mainstream.

An admitted drug addict who often railed against drug addicts², Limbaugh often delivered what he called AIDS updates accompanied by a Dionne Warwick song, “I’ll Never Love This Way Again.”

Many of Limbaugh’s statements were dangerous and led directly to people dying. For example, he said of Covid-19:

“It looks like the coronavirus is being weaponized as yet another element to bring down Donald Trump,” Limbaugh…