The Wicked Wit of Rush

Here’s the promised post on Rush Limbaugh’s humor. Some of you will not find it very humorous, I’m afraid.

Each weekday at noon, hundreds of radio stations across the country broadcast a heavy bass riff, instantly recognizable to millions of listeners, most of whom have no idea that It’s the riff that opens “My City Was Gone,” a 1982 hit by the Pretenders lamenting what urban sprawl had done to the area around Akron, Ohio, the home town of lead singer Chrissie Hynde. The last stanza conveys the spirit of the whole:

I went back to Ohio
But my pretty countryside
Had been paved down the middle
By a government that had no pride
The farms of Ohio
Had been replaced by shopping malls
And Muzak filled the air
From Seneca to Cuyahoga Falls
Said, ay, oh, way to go, Ohio

The lyrics carry unintended irony in view of the song's appropriation by someone who has no problem at all with big business devouring all in sight.

Because after about 40 seconds, the bass riff disappears and instead one hears a commanding voice announcing another edition of “The Rush Limbaugh Show,” part of the (fictional) EIB Network and the beating heart of the (fictional) Institute for Advanced Conservative Studies. The voice of course belongs to Rush Limbaugh, by far the most famous radio talk show host in the country and, for that matter, one of the most familiar names in the country—certainly with any American political junkie.

Over the course of his four-decade career, Limbaugh has evolved into arguably the most powerful person in politics who does not hold public office, and indeed he is more powerful than most of those who do. His popular image is that of a relentless enemy of left wing America, which is true enough. But unless you listen to the show, you have no idea that he has a wicked sense of humor and can be very funny—although this was far more true a decade ago than it is now.

Media critic Brian Rosenwald, author of a superb new book on political talk radio, argues that Limbaugh’s sense of fun was a major reason for his early success.

“At the outset, Limbaugh wasn’t angling to become a political force—he was there to entertain and make money. Limbaugh’s show departed from the staid, largely nonpartisan, interview and caller-based programs that were the norm in earlier talk radio. Instead, Limbaugh was a consummate showman who excited listeners by being zany and fun and obliterating boundaries, offering up something the likes of which many Americans had never heard before.”

Rosenwald goes on to describe some of Limbaugh’s antics. Scornful of the way that liberals seemed to idealize Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev for his role in ending the Cold War, Limbaugh called liberal expressions of adulation “Gorbasms,” and the pronouncement of a Gorbasm was followed by a cut from Star Wars’ ”Imperial March” (better known as the Darth Vader theme). Stories about animal-rights activism triggered a mashup of Andy Williams’ “Born Free” with, as Rosenwald describes it, “machine gun blasts, mortar explosions, and screeching animals.”

Limbaugh broadcast a parody song about Senator Ted Kennedy entitled “The Philanderer,” to the tune of Dion’s 1961 hit “The Wanderer.” He coined acid but witty nicknames for any figure who displeased him. Democratic Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, for example, was invariably called “Dingy Harry.”

I tuned in regularly to “The Rush Limbaugh Show” during the Clinton Administration, a period in which Limbaugh opened each broadcast by saying that it was Day [insert number here] of “America Held Hostage.”

With few exceptions I can’t recall specific antics, but a lot of them were laugh out loud funny and redolent with irreverent humor—which happens to be my favorite form of humor, especially when it is outrageously irreverent.

But the show routinely flirted with the boundary between what was offensive but funny and what was just plain offensive, and I happened to be listening during one of the most famous instances of the latter.

It happened in late 2007, on the verge of the 2008 Democratic Primary season. The adulation accorded Barack Obama in some circles was mocked by an Al Sharpton impersonator who sang “Barack the Magic Negro” to the tune of “Puff the Magic Dragon."

Here are the lyrics in full:

Barack, the Magic Negro
Lives in DC
The L.A. Times, they called him that
'Cause he's not authentic like me.
Yeah, the guy from the L.A. paper
Said he makes guilty whites feel good
They'll vote for him, and not for me
'Cause he's not from the 'hood.

See, real black men, like Snoop Dog,
Or me, or Farrakhan
Have talked the talk, and walked the walk,
Not come in late and won!

[Refrain] Oh, Barack the Magic Negro, lives in D.C.
The L.A. Times, they called him that
'Cause he's black, but not authentically.
Oh, Barack the Magic Negro, lives in D.C.
The L.A. Times, they called him that
'Cause he's black, but not authentically.

Some say Barack's "articulate"
And bright and new and "clean."
The media sure loves this guy,
A white interloper's dream!
But when you vote for president,
Watch out, and don't be fooled!
Don't vote the Magic Negro in -
'Cause -

[Spoken] 'Cause I won't have nothing after all these years of sacrifice, and I won't get justice. This is about justice. This isn't about me, it's about justice.
It's about buffet. I don't have no buffet and there won't be any church contributions, and there'll be no cash in the collection plate.There ain't gonna be no cash money, no walkin'-around money, no phone-in money.

***

The song created a tempest in the media, which pleased Limbaugh no end. And I’d bet real money that most of Rush’s listeners laughed their asses off.

The end of this post pretty much forces me to focus the next column on the racism that lies just below the surface of Limbaugh’s broadcasts—and in this case, of course, broached the surface outright.