Rush......No Last Name Is Necessary

I was in the army and overseas when Rush Limbaugh started his career as a DJ just a few miles from my Pittsburgh suburb apartment home....and he still had his show when I returned in February of 1972. He would move to another station....even a little bit closer....replacing none other than Jim Quinn....who would much later go on to conservative talk radio fame. Two local stations were battling it out for the top spot in Top 40 radio. My cousin....eight years older than me....started out as a DJ....succeeded....and then became a program consultant on a national level....with Time Magazine doing an article in 1974 on his innovative methods. Anyway....he was brought into town and changed the name of the one station to a catchy....13Q. I remember a story he told me about a board meeting at some station where he was contracted....I can't remember if that was here in Pittsburgh or not....anyway....he came in....hair dyed red....bushy beard....no shoes....and got up on the conference table and started crawling around....before telling the men in business suits....that he does things differently. They won the battle of Top 40 stations....he moved on....and Rush's station decided to become an all news format....as Rush also had moved on....which down the line culminated in his place at the top of talk radio....with no one even remotely near him....nor ever will be remotely near him. Johnny Carson is the only other name that I can come up with whose communicative skills as they relate to an audience can be compared to Rush. I used to have a homemade bumper sticker that read....'RUSH IS ON NOW....104.7....and I would put it on my bumper from 12 to 3 in the afternoon....(some things never change.) President Donald Trump had a lot of real and faithful allies....but very few that I can bring to mind right now....that would qualify as 100% loyal.....and I mean a mathematical 100%....not just a cute expression. In Rush....there was no decision that President Trump could make....no tweet that he could send....no gaffe or mistake made....that Rush could not only defend....but defend in an extraordinarily effective way....and that is where I came to differ with Rush in the past few years. He worked his primary mission in life right up to the end....in a most extreme dedication to cause....and was as lucid and cogent in his last broadcast....(knowing that his illness was terminal)....as he ever was. Should history go on.....that should the Lord of Glory tarry....and some historian compile a list of every president of the United States....and the one person most important to them....vital to their very presence in the executive office....whereas to Jefferson it may have been Madison....and to Madison...Jefferson....and to JFK it may have been RFK....and to Reagan and Clinton their spouses....and to George W.....George H. W.....to Donald Trump it was certainly Rush Limbaugh....who along with his influence on another president in George W. Bush....and tens if not hundreds of millions of people over a thirty year span....was not just a radio talk show host....but one of the most influential and thus important people in the entire world.