Rush Limbaugh’s brother penned an emotional tribute to the late radio icon reflecting on his upbringing and how it molded his passion for a medium that he single-handedly revolutionized over the course of three decades.
David Limbaugh said Rush would turn down the volume on the television and do play-by-play for his family. He said their family bought him a Remco Caravelle, a toy that allowed him to beam his broadcast out of the home’s radios.
“Though Rush is now known to the world as a consummate talker, what is not widely known is that he didn’t start that way,” he wrote in the op-ed published in the Southeast Missourian. “He was first a listener – an information sponge, quietly inhaling knowledge at the feet of our dad.”
Limbaugh died February 17 after a year-long battle with lung cancer. He was 70.
David Limbaugh says that background helped as his brother became the “tip of the spear” for conservatives, taking “tidal waves” of abuse from “hateful leftists” who devoted their lives to destroying him. They failed; he says.
“Rush was responsible not for the development of modern conservatism but for its explosion into the mainstream of American life,” writes David, adding, “He single-handedly resurrected AM talk radio.”
