Limbaugh the Entertainer

Rambunctious, absurd, pedantic, ostentatious, opinionated, ridiculous and controversial — typically, people who fit this description garner loads of attention and make great entertainers.

Axl Rose, Charlie Sheen, Kanye West, Mel Gibson and R. Kelly all fit this mould, and all have given us more than their fair shares of ridiculous quotes. They are all massively entertaining because of it. 

Someone who fits this mould better than all of them combined is Rush Limbaugh. No one on the planet is better at providing ridiculous quotes and never-ending laughs than Rush Limbaugh. 

Last week on The Rush Limbaugh Show, he gave his take about the testimony given on Capitol Hill by a Georgetown University law student named Sandra Fluke advocating for contraception. 

Luckily for us, Limbaugh did not disappoint when presented with this golden opportunity. Limbaugh went on to call Fluke a “slut” and “prostitute” and said “she wants to be paid to have sex.”

This is simply Limbaugh at his best: taking exception with a point of view and blowing his opinion into ridiculous proportions. 

At this point, I don’t even understand how people get angry with Rush anymore.

In his illustriously entertaining past, he has managed to call soldiers endorsing withdrawing troops from Iraq “phony soldiers” and criticized Michael J. Fox for “exaggerating the effects of his disease.”
 
Given his track record of absurd remarks, his comments about Fluke came as absolutely no surprise to me.

What came as more of surprise to me was when companies who advertise during his show began to pull their commercial spots.

What did they expect was going to happen? With Rush Limbaugh, you know exactly what you are going to get: completely unfiltered, absurdly conservative views.

People expect Limbaugh to be more like Wolf Blitzer or Anderson Cooper because he mainly talks about politics.

In reality, he is more like Jon Stewart or Stephen Colbert — entertainment.

I love Rush Limbaugh. Even as a like-minded conservative, Limbaugh says some things that shock me, but you have to take his comments in context. Limbagh is an entertainer and is extremely good at creating controversy. Controversy brings attention, and attention brings in advertising.

Limbaugh and others might consider him more of a real political force, but when you accept him as an entertainer, you can truly appreciate him.

Limbaugh’s comments remind me of a question in an intro politics class I took. A girl asked the professor, stone-faced, where the Cold War was physically fought. The question was beyond stupid, but it was absolutely hilarious. 

This is a perfect embodiment of Limbaugh and what he represents: beyond stupid but absolutely hilarious.  

­— wfgryna@indiana.edu