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The rise of Rush Limbaugh and his influence on both his talk radio & TV audiences and conservative politics.

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00:00is he the most dangerous man in america welcome the most listened to radio talk show in america
00:11reporters say that i took brainless people and converted them to mind-numb robots
00:18conservative values and every day would send out code this is how i feel that would force
00:25them to march to the polls on november the 8th and pull the lever i wanted them to pull
00:30tonight rush limbaugh 20 million americans are listening what are they hearing
00:36tonight on frontline rush limbaugh's america
00:41funding for frontline is provided by the corporation for public broadcasting
00:50and by annual financial support from viewers like you
00:55this is frontline
01:00this is a special edition of the rush limbaugh program
01:19democracy restored america awakens
01:23and i'll tell you what folks i don't know about you but i sure as heck
01:28i feel good
01:30i feel good
01:37james brown
01:38good republican folks
01:41ladies and gentlemen mr rush limbaugh
01:54when i first met rush limbaugh three years ago he told me he just wanted to be a rich and famous radio star
02:07he said he didn't care about political power
02:10thank you thank you thank you please how does it feel to be part of a majority that's right
02:19by the time of the republican victory in november a lot had changed
02:28for one thing the new crowd in washington thinks rush put them there
02:33the people that listen to ten hours of talk radio a week or more voted republican by a three to one
02:41margin those are the people that elected the new congress that's why this is the limbaugh congress
02:47what these new conservatives mean is that rush took the republican party out of the country club
02:53and made it of all things the people's party
02:56i think it's actually indicative of the of a republican party that's changed an awful lot
03:03from the days when a george herbert walker bush was the example of a republican and i say this with all
03:09you know respect and deference to president bush
03:10but that rush limbaugh comes from you know middle class origins and uh was a sports uh publicist and
03:17a and a local radio host becomes an important figure in the party and more broadly really in the
03:24movement please whatever you do leave some liberals alive i think we should have at least on every
03:31college campus one communist professor and two liberal professors so we never forget who these people
03:36are and what they stand for we always show our children what they were and what they want
03:40living fossils ladies and gentlemen the rap on conservatives always was they didn't have any
03:49sense of humor uh they couldn't tell a joke uh they were pessimistic and sort of had a crab view of
03:55the world well rush is none of those things he's very optimistic he believes america's best days are
04:00ahead of us much like ronald reagan did he certainly can tell a joke even a lot of liberals find him
04:05very funny so in a sense i think he's taken many of the conservative stereotypes and stood them on their
04:09head did you know that the white house drug test is a multiple choice test
04:14i was stunned i was stunned
04:20the limbaugh's opponents see in him the cruel wit of a bully and the brute sway of a demagogue
04:27he doesn't really want to live in the world of ideas he wants to turn to personal ridicule
04:32and vilification because his goal is not to persuade people again his audience is not mostly undecided
04:38folks he wants instead to vilify to demonize and to delegitimize his political opponents
04:44i know you liberals are tuning in you got the lights out you're coward in the corner
04:49and you don't want to admit to anybody that you're watching this we know you're there
04:57you're scared
05:00i just want to leave you with this we feel your pain
05:06unlikely as it may seem even to rush limbaugh he is now center stage in our national politics
05:14and what has happened to our national politics could not have happened without him
05:19the first thing you have to understand about rush limbaugh is that he comes from the middle of america
05:40all is calm
05:51cape girardo missouri is a town that is happy with itself
05:55content with its traditions and conventions
05:58a place as far away as you can get from where they make the news and where they make the movies
06:03in cape girardo the limbaugh men were always lawyers and they were always republicans
06:09Rush's father, Big Rush, wouldn't have it any other way.
06:12He was always a big man, over 300 pounds most of his life.
06:17He was an imposing presence, physically and mentally.
06:21People just came over to watch him, watch him talk.
06:25It was a visual experience as well as an audio experience.
06:30And he was a fascinating mind, he really was.
06:32And he was a colorful personality, and people either really liked him or couldn't stand him because he was very opinionated.
06:38Help me to understand the relationship between Rush and his daddy.
06:41Was it the sort of thing where Rush could say, ah, pop, nah, and, you know, was it constantly respectful, yes or no, sir?
06:47I never heard Rush cross his dad.
06:51Never did.
06:52He was quiet.
06:54Rush always wanted to be an adult.
06:57In fact, I think from 10 on, he was an adult.
07:01He did not want to be bothered with childish things.
07:07He was, he was, and he was a loner.
07:10Did he date?
07:11No, he did not date in high school.
07:13I think he, he didn't even go to his senior prom because he was working.
07:17He'd rather work.
07:18He didn't go.
07:19A lonely boy, uneasy with his own youth and with the 1960s,
07:24Rush found a separate world inside a booth behind a microphone.
07:28When he got his job at the radio station, the first job at age 16, it gave him a feeling of superiority and made him feel like King Tut.
07:40He was a 16-year-old who had an afternoon, I guess you call it a drive-time radio show, I don't know,
07:46and was very successful at it.
07:49And he was really, he really worked at trying to make sure that the public didn't know that was a 16-year-old.
07:55But Big Rush had other plans for his oldest son.
07:59College, law school, taking his place as a Limbaugh.
08:08But Rush hated school.
08:10He endured a year of college and then dropped out.
08:13If saying to your father, I'm not going to go to college, I'm going to go to, be a radio personality,
08:19if that's rebelliousness, that's how Rush rebelled, if all of us rebel to some extent or another when we're adolescents.
08:28But he didn't rebel politically.
08:30He didn't rebel philosophically like so many people in our generation did.
08:3514K.
08:36Music radio, 14K.
08:38Jeff Christie, often imitated, often mimicked, often copied, but never equal.
08:44And I am smack dab.
08:45Rush reinvented himself as Jeff Christie, a Top 40 DJ who loved to talk, and landed a job in Pittsburgh.
08:53From the beginning, he developed an on-air personality as Mr. Bombast, full of pranks and self-promotion.
09:0114K.
09:029.03 and 14K on the award-winning Jeff Christie Rock and Roll Radio Show.
09:07With fun and frolic for all, some of you, no doubt, still wondering what award I have won.
09:11And I'll tell you, none other than the Marconi Award for excellence in broadcasting.
09:17And then when he went to Pittsburgh, he sent a couple of tapes home to me, and they were hilarious.
09:22He had a little more free reign with them.
09:25And it was, I thought, boy, if someone hears you, you're on your way.
09:30It's 19 degrees in the Golden Triangle, Michael Jackson.
09:33But in a fickle business, Rush was mostly on his way to unemployment.
09:40He was fired from two stations in Pittsburgh, two more in Kansas City.
09:44And he ended up in a low-level management job with the Kansas City Royals.
09:48After five years there, I was making $18,000 a year.
09:52Now, I don't know what kind of money that sounds like to you.
09:58But believe me, in Kansas City, Missouri, at age 32, it's an embarrassment if you take yourself seriously.
10:04And I was miserable.
10:07I was unhappy.
10:08I was aimless.
10:09I had given up on radio.
10:12Rush was not a top-40 DJ.
10:14He was not even a baseball man.
10:16It looked like Big Rush's predictions of failure were coming true.
10:20And then he caught a break.
10:22This is KFBK, Sacramento.
10:25Bob in Carmichael, hello, you're on KFBK.
10:28Hi, Rush, how are you?
10:29Fine, thank you.
10:30Rush had been experimenting with talk radio in Kansas City.
10:33And in 1984, there was an opening in Sacramento, where Morton Downey Jr. had been fired for making a racist joke.
10:40KFBK hired Rush to be their kinder, gentler conservative.
10:44He's like a normal, average, Midwestern guy who had these conservative views, not because it's part of an agenda, but because he truly feels that way.
10:56But the thing that I think distinguishes him from other conservative spokesmen is that he has this impish, playful sense of humor that he incorporates, and it comes out in this wild package, sometimes irreverent.
11:08And I just don't think that's ever been done before.
11:10Yes, it is lubricated.
11:16Yes, my hands are greasy.
11:19But I do it because I care.
11:22This, ladies and gentlemen, is safe talk.
11:25Do you know what makes this safe talk?
11:28This condom.
11:29This condom protects you from whatever evil words I might enunciate.
11:36He had finally found himself as Rush Limbaugh, the angry white guy with a sense of humor.
11:41He was an instant hit, blew everybody off the dial with his act as a rock and roll conservative.
11:47That was the weird part about him.
11:49He'd appear so straight-laced, yet, you know, roll up this newspaper and spank me.
11:53I mean, where did that come from?
11:55He'd have me roll up a newspaper, and this is when either he made a mistake, or I can't remember what the circumstance would be.
12:03But anyway, yeah, he'd want to swat with the newspaper.
12:07So I did.
12:10Mr. Limbaugh, let me tell you something.
12:12I think that we...
12:14He used to do collar abortions, which I found particularly distasteful.
12:25Kind of a vacuum sound and a little scream or something, which he did discontinue because there were so many complaints about it.
12:31And a lot of his loyal listeners were the ones that were complaining.
12:35He gave offense, but that was the point.
12:38His act was a jihad against liberal culture.
12:41Feminists were feminazis.
12:44Environmentalists were wacko tree-huggers.
12:46And gays deserve their fate.
12:48You want to not get AIDS in America, and if you're a man, you want to not get AIDS.
12:55One thing you don't do.
12:56You do not ask another man to bend over and make love at the exit point.
13:03That's what you don't do.
13:04And ironically, the person who hired him at KFBK was a gay man named Norm Woodruff,
13:10who would occasionally go into Rush and tell him to tone it down a bit.
13:15I think Rush resented that a great deal.
13:18Here was this homosexual, as Rush would say, with some kind of control over his program and over his career.
13:25What impressed me most about Rush and what I remember about him was that at his core,
13:32he was extremely insecure, lacked self-esteem, and was very vulnerable to criticism.
13:40It could really shatter him to have the program director come in and criticize
13:43even a small piece of what he had done on the air that day.
13:47He was very susceptible to that.
13:49He craved attention.
13:50He craved validation.
13:52And for a big guy, physically, he's a big guy.
13:56And for all the bravado, I think that really hides a very thin skin that he has off the air.
14:04The latest craze among progressive homosexuals has resulted in numerous gay men
14:10reporting to hospital emergency rooms,
14:14needing gerbils surgically removed from their rectums.
14:21Oh, God!
14:22He was able to take some of that sentiment, which on the one hand was funny,
14:28at the same time appealed to a baser instinct in people, a racist instinct in people,
14:35an anti-feminist point of view, a kind of the angry white guy point of view,
14:40and really find an ear for it here in Sacramento.
14:43Whatever Rush had tapped into, it was deep and broad.
14:49After four years in Sacramento, he was offered a show in New York and a chance to be syndicated nationally.
14:54I think he saw this as being all the goals of all the things that he ever wanted to do in life could come together in this one fashion of having a national radio show where he could be Rush Limbaugh.
15:08But that meant living in New York City, which was not exactly Rush country.
15:13He was very tentative about going. In fact, I think if he'd had his druthers, he would have done the show from Sacramento if he could have.
15:21I think he felt like he had found a home here that he hasn't really found since and was very nervous about moving to New York.
15:30And still, once he had moved there, had a lot of fears and would call home and talk to his friends and say,
15:35Oh, I don't know if I've done the right thing.
15:37When I first met Limbaugh in New York, he was a man painfully out of place.
15:41He felt like a nobody in a town full of media stars.
15:45He was still a Midwestern square lost among the cultural elite.
15:50And so he separated himself from New York, living inside his personal bubble.
15:54The radio booth by day, his apartment at night, alone.
16:00His wife, Michelle, had left him. It was his second failed marriage.
16:04I don't think he would have chosen to break up either marriage.
16:08I think it was the choice of both of his ex-wives.
16:10Not because they didn't care about him, but I think he, you know, he's kind of set in his ways, sedentary more than some guys.
16:19But he didn't deny that.
16:20And I think most women, especially young women, don't want guys to be sedentary.
16:25My brother makes no bones about it. He's sedentary.
16:28I can't imagine what it would be like, you know, married to him.
16:32But I've always thought Rush needed just a good old-fashioned girl like his mother.
16:37Or mother's peers, you know.
16:39But I don't think they think that way anymore.
16:42No way?
16:42I think he needs a wife subservient to him, you know.
16:46But now that's not the way it is, is it?
16:48And this is Hazel, our old friend from Brooklyn.
16:52Hello, Hazel.
16:53Hi, Rush.
16:53How are you?
16:54I am so excited to be speaking to you again.
16:57Well, you've been sending some nice CompuServe notes.
17:00But Rush did have his community, a virtual community, linked by faxes, email, and talk radio.
17:07He has the kind of almost narcotic effect on listeners that you think, no matter how horrible the world is,
17:18no matter how scared you are, that it can get better.
17:24Rush Limbaugh, endorsed by the angels.
17:27Who says you need calls on a talk show when you have me as host?
17:34When I started listening to Rush, I became very vocal about being pro-life.
17:38I even joined the Christian Coalition, which is sort of a surprise to my father
17:42that his nice Jewish girl from Brooklyn is a member of the Christian Coalition,
17:47which is something I would have never done had Rush not gotten me very courageous about being pro-life.
17:56We have Hazel from right here in Brooklyn on the phone.
18:00Hazel?
18:01Yes?
18:01How are you?
18:02Glad to hear from you.
18:03I know you've been struggling and trying to get in here for a long time,
18:05and now you've finally made it.
18:06Your big showbiz break.
18:08Well, I'm hoping that I can do you proud, Rush.
18:10I'm sure you will.
18:11Doesn't she sound just great?
18:13You do.
18:14Rush and I used to do a sort of schtick together, and it worked well.
18:19Well, he likes to be flattered by listeners, and I was glad to do it
18:28and come up with ever more grandiose ways of flattering him, and he was happy.
18:33So, yeah.
18:35It was sort of a creative pursuit of mine.
18:38Very rewarding.
18:39Off the air, Rush and Hazel talked via CompuServe, a kind of e-mail coffee date.
18:47Hazel saved all of Rush's messages.
18:50I remain in an interminable funk, no end in sight, listless, uninspired, and self-flagellating.
18:56And I thought, what a sad thing to write, and to write to somebody he didn't even know.
19:06Later, I came to realize that it was probably his way of trying to attract a woman.
19:13You know, for a woman to read Rush Has No Friends and for her to respond,
19:18let me make it better for you.
19:20I would like for my lovely and gracious wife, Marta, to join me here.
19:24Eventually, Rush would find his third wife, Marta, by e-mail.
19:32By the late 1980s, Rush was starting to connect with a national audience
19:41just the way he had in Sacramento.
19:44On the cutting edge of societal evolution,
19:47I am Rush Limbaugh on the Excellence in Broadcasting Network.
19:51Let us cook.
19:53We sat down, the general manager, Tony Salvador, and I sat down and listened to this guy.
19:59And after getting over the initial shock of listening, going, whoa.
20:02But then a realization, hey, well, what have we got to lose?
20:05This guy's unbelievable, but he's outrageous.
20:08But we'd like to get somewhere in this market.
20:10We gave it a shot and put him on.
20:12Boom.
20:12An excellent role model for the youth of America or anybody else needing guidance for that matter.
20:19I am Rush Limbaugh.
20:23You need guidance?
20:25Follow me.
20:28We're a very heavily male station.
20:3065% is male.
20:32And Rush just hit a nerve.
20:35Feminism was established so that unattractive, ugly broads could have easy access to the mainstream, right?
20:41Did you see it?
20:42Yes!
20:43You saw it!
20:44Bunch of cows.
20:52We averaged about 250 calls and 250 letters a day in protest.
20:57How could you put this on?
20:58This is unbelievable.
20:59Why would you do this?
21:01Within six, eight, nine weeks, this thing is turning around.
21:04And within a year, it's become the number one rated show.
21:07Ladies and gentlemen, Rush Limbaugh.
21:13Rush was a new kind of star.
21:16His fans weren't merely fans.
21:18They called themselves Ditto Heads.
21:20Mega Ditto's Rush was their salute of praise and agreement.
21:26Across the country, restaurants opened Rush Rooms,
21:29where his fans came every day to listen together to his show.
21:34You guys ever been to Digital 3-4?
21:36No, I haven't.
21:37Let me tell you what we got, man.
21:38Now, if you want a nice little sandwich, you can get the Animal Rights sandwich,
21:42which is 100% roast beef.
21:44Then we also have the Anita Hill special.
21:48What's the Anita Hill special?
21:50There isn't one. We lied.
21:51Okay.
21:52Rush liberated his listeners,
21:54freeing them from the bonds of political correctness and liberal orthodoxy.
22:00Then we got Hillary's cookies.
22:02She baked herself.
22:03Take them right from the freezer and bake them.
22:05That's how she does it.
22:06Rush was also connecting with another segment of America's disaffected electorate,
22:12the religious right.
22:13Talk radio, conservative talk radio in particular, Rush Limbaugh and G. Gordon Liddy,
22:18soon to be Oliver North, and some of the other folks that are popping up around the country,
22:23give the average citizen a voice.
22:27As you hear the calls for Rush and for the other talk shows that, gosh, America thinks like this.
22:35What the Christian right heard in Rush's humor was an avenging angel for their moral crusade.
22:41I can't compromise on the issue of murdering children.
22:44You know, if it's interesting, you know, you look at it and say it's much easier.
22:48I mean, people go crazy with a Susan Smith, you know, drowning their children.
22:51But it is a much more violent intervention even to go in and risk the life of the mother to go and rip a child out of the mother's uterus.
22:57I mean, that is a little person.
23:00I have to tell you that, you know, I'm not a person that goes out and attempts to attack homosexuals or anything like that.
23:07I believe that's wrong.
23:09But I do believe that the practice of homosexuality is wrong.
23:15It's contrary to God's word.
23:17And it destroys every society that it's allowed to flourish in.
23:23But Rush's shots at gays were about to get him into trouble.
23:28By 1990, he got a chance at the really big time as substitute host on the CBS late night television show.
23:35It was a rare trip for him outside the secure bubble of his studio and his fans.
23:42And note that you're on national television and nobody's stopping you.
23:45So why are you so mad?
23:46Why am I mad?
23:47Yeah.
23:47Because women are dying every day all over the world because people like you.
23:51Do you understand that?
23:55People with your attitude.
24:01This time, some of his enemies were waiting for him.
24:05I have...
24:05You're a funny, officer.
24:07You should be ashamed of yourself.
24:08That's right.
24:09Chill out.
24:10We know you want us to do it because you think you're going to improve your ratings.
24:14But we are going to be wherever you are and we're going to denounce and expose you.
24:19So, the point that I wanted to prove here by coming into the audience, people who have no idea who I am are saying that I am affecting life in this country murderously with my words.
24:33I'd like to point out that my attitude on this happens to be in the majority.
24:42It does.
24:43Welcome back, ladies and gentlemen.
24:58As you can see, we have had to clear the studio of the audience in order to be able to conclude this final segment of the program.
25:06A chastened Rush later apologized for his jokes about AIDS and promised to not make fun of the dying.
25:14But for some of his fans in the Christian right, Rush's backpedaling was a disappointment.
25:18In the beginning of his career, I remember listening when he used to do collar abortions, drowning out collars to a show with the sound of a vacuum cleaner, which really dramatized the pro-life cause.
25:34Those collar abortions are gone.
25:36He discontinued those.
25:37He used to have AIDS updates poking fun at homosexual promiscuity.
25:42He used to play renditions of My Boy Lollipop, making fun of homosexual congressman Barney Frank.
25:50All of those are gone.
25:51The Reverend Jackson.
25:53The Reverend Jackson.
25:54Rush was recalibrating his act, toning down the outrageous cultural rhetoric and aiming his satire at the politics of the left.
26:03Rush, the law.
26:05A recently remixed version of I'm a Philanderer.
26:10And after this, my friends, we're going to offer lib-o-suction to those of you who need it.
26:15Well, I'm the type of guy who will never settle down.
26:19Where pretty girls are, well, you know that I'm around.
26:23I kiss a man, I love him.
26:25Because to me, they're all the same.
26:27His favorite targets were Jesse Jackson, Mario Cuomo, and Ted Kennedy.
26:31I'm a Philanderer.
26:33Yes, a Philanderer.
26:34Good luck for you on.
26:36Thanks very much.
26:36Good to see you.
26:37And in the 1992 presidential campaign, Limbaugh became a partisan political player, endorsing the upstart campaign of conservative Pat Buchanan.
26:46Good morning, Pat.
26:47Good to see you.
26:48How you doing?
26:49I am today declaring my candidacy for the Republican nomination for president of the United States.
26:56But the Bush camp, sensing that Rush could be flipped, went to work on him.
27:05The president even invited Rush to spend the night in the White House.
27:09I went into that Lincoln bedroom, and I just sat there and tried to savor it.
27:12You know, after everybody else had gone to bed, it's about one o'clock in the morning, and I'm just sitting there at the desk where Abraham Lincoln wrote the Gettysburg Address.
27:19And there's a framed copy of it right there, one of five, that he wrote.
27:22It's the only one that signed and dated.
27:24And I'm sitting where it happened, in the very room where it happened.
27:27And I just wanted to make sure I savored it, rather than have it become a passing memory.
27:33Rush went all out for Bush, inviting the president to appear on his show, one of his rare guests.
27:40And the vice president landed Air Force Two in Cape Girardeau to greet David and Millie Limbaugh and to telephone Rush's show.
27:48He is a fine man.
27:50He is a decent man.
27:51And I am proud to be able to call him my friend.
27:54And ladies and gentlemen, let me introduce to you, with a big New Jersey greeting, the president of the United States, George Bush.
28:06But even Russia's support could not save the doomed Bush campaign.
28:12And when it was over, the right was dispirited and leaderless.
28:16I'll never forget those dreary, dark, depressing, despondent days after that defeat in 1992,
28:23to where all of us who had been together for so long were now dissipated.
28:27And all we had to hold us together was Rush Limbaugh.
28:30And I can remember sitting in my apartment, by myself, day after day, for weeks on end.
28:35And it was the centerpiece of my day.
28:37And then we'd call each other.
28:38He was the only voice in that huge defeat, in the face of the arrogance of the Clintonistas,
28:44rushing into town.
28:45That really kept us collected.
28:47Conservatism won.
28:51Why, the two guys who won the presidency and vice presidency had to masquerade as moderates and centrists.
28:57They had to make you think that they're not liberal.
29:01In the absence of real political leadership, Rush Limbaugh became the de facto leader of conservatives in America.
29:08And God bless this country.
29:10Ronald Reagan even passed his mantle to Rush in a letter saying,
29:17Now that I've retired, you have become the number one voice for conservatism in our country.
29:22And that big voice now devoted itself to destroying Bill and Hillary Clinton.
29:26Here it is.
29:27This is the White House now with Clinton.
29:31I mean, we've done it.
29:45I mean, we've elected a guy who drove around a VW bus with the peace signs all on it.
29:49He's now president.
29:50One of these peace names.
29:52Now we're going to next talk, ladies and gentlemen, about Mrs. Clinton.
29:55Uh, no, wait just a second.
30:00Wait a second.
30:00Don't forget.
30:01We honor her here.
30:03Don't forget this.
30:04Mrs. Clinton single-handedly destroyed her husband's presidency.
30:08She single-handedly saw to it that we will not have socialized medicine anytime soon, if in our lifetimes.
30:15America will never be the same after Bill Gump.
30:20My name is Bill Gump.
30:23Everyone calls me Bill Gump.
30:26Liberal is, as liberal does.
30:28Could we see the cute kid?
30:31Let's take a look and see who is the cute kid in the White House.
30:36No, no, no, no.
30:38That's not the kid.
30:39That's, that's the kid.
30:40We're trying to...
30:41Russia's attack on the Clintons was so persistent and so effective,
30:50it left the president, the man with the biggest megaphone in the world,
30:54feeling he couldn't compete.
30:57After I get off the radio today with you, Rush Limbaugh will have three hours to say whatever he wants.
31:02And I won't have any opportunity to respond, and there's no truth detector.
31:06You won't get on afterwards and say what was true and what wasn't.
31:11Limbaugh's growing power began drawing sharp critiques from the left about his accuracy.
31:16Okay, folks, I think I got enough information here to tell you the contents of this fax that I got.
31:24Brace yourselves.
31:25There's a Washington consulting firm that is scheduled to release a report this afternoon that will appear,
31:31it will be published,
31:32that claims that Vince Foster was murdered in an apartment owned by Hillary Clinton,
31:37and the body was then taken to Fort Marcy Park.
31:44Rush Limbaugh in action, March 10th, 1994.
31:48He's gone on the air to millions of people with a rumor of a fax that he botched,
31:56saying that the first lady's apartment was involved in a murder.
31:59Now, when you look at the, what the insider's newsletter actually said,
32:05it said nothing about a murder,
32:06it said nothing about Hillary Clinton's apartment.
32:09I don't think he should go to jail for telling lies on the radio.
32:13He ought to be accountable to the country and to his conscience.
32:16And when he, for example, to get very serious,
32:18when he talks about Vince Foster and the circumstances of Vince's suicide,
32:25he's inflicting real pain on good people who never did a thing in the world wrong
32:29and who have suffered an enormous personal tragedy.
32:32He makes so many errors that if he actually corrected them like journalists do,
32:37he'd have more correction than show.
32:39He makes mistakes, he often corrects them,
32:42and just like people in the mainstream media, he learns from his mistakes.
32:47So, Rush, I think, has a higher standard than most people in talk radio,
32:51partly because with 680-odd stations,
32:54frankly, if he makes a mistake, everyone notices.
32:56This is also a benevolent dictatorship.
32:58I am the dictator.
33:00There is no First Amendment here except for me.
33:04Rush Limbaugh's talk radio is mostly him talking,
33:07interpreting and dissecting the day's political news,
33:10a virtuoso monologue performed three hours a day, five days a week.
33:15I've always found it very instructive that Rush never has debate on his show.
33:20He has nothing but a vigorous agreement with his occasional guests.
33:26Never a disagreement, never a debate, never any honest exchange of ideas.
33:30At one time, the federal government insisted that broadcasters offer balance in their programming.
33:35But the repeal of the Fairness Doctrine in the mid-'80s freed stations and gave Rush an open field.
33:41No one has had this uncontested monologue, political advocacy, in the history of U.S. television.
33:48Never been heard of.
33:49All right, listen up, folks.
33:50The political twister's kicking up across the fruited plain,
33:53and you need a conservative compass to point you to the truth.
33:56You need the Limbaugh letter.
33:58Limbaugh was becoming Rush, Incorporated,
34:01and he would teach the media elite that there's big money in conservative ideas.
34:06I proposed Rush Limbaugh to the people at Simon & Schuster,
34:11and they rejected it, and they rejected it, and rejected it, and rejected it,
34:15and I just kept going back and doing my usual routines.
34:18And at some point, I convinced them that they should let me do this,
34:23because I was doing a lot of other celebrity books,
34:25and this was one that was meaningful to me,
34:27and there was tremendous resistance.
34:29They were not interested in publishing Rush Limbaugh,
34:32because the general consensus in publishing,
34:36and at that company at the time, was he was that fascist nut,
34:39and they didn't want to have anything to do with him,
34:41and they didn't think the books would sell.
34:42And besides, you know, people who listen to the Rush Limbaugh show,
34:44they don't read.
34:46You know, they couldn't possibly read.
34:48Those people don't think, because they don't agree with us.
34:50Therefore, they don't think.
34:52You and Oprah have all the money, don't you?
34:54You and Oprah.
34:56This is your, like, second best-selling book.
34:58Seven and a half million copies of three books in print.
35:02Oh, my God.
35:03And about five million sold.
35:04I just, I'm overwhelmed by it.
35:06Limbaugh's personal income is now an estimated $25 million a year.
35:10Thank everybody, everybody in the audience,
35:12including the liberals out there.
35:14Do you ever wake up in the middle of the night
35:15and just think to yourself,
35:16I am just full of hot gas?
35:19Do you ever?
35:20You know what I mean?
35:21Rush Limbaugh was the first big success in national talk radio,
35:29now dominated by three hopelessly bad boys,
35:32Limbaugh, Howard Stern, and Don Imus.
35:35I experimented with marijuana, and I didn't like it.
35:38Don't move the red joint, my friend.
35:44I miss in the morning.
35:46Unfortunately, it's all the same people.
35:49I know, I mean, with Stern's audience,
35:51once they get a GED,
35:53then we get them.
35:55And once they get their teeth,
35:58why, Rush gets them.
35:59But, uh...
36:00I don't think they're all shut-ins
36:04and people drooling on themselves.
36:06I think it's a big male 1854 demographic.
36:10Those are huge numbers,
36:11and somebody went to the bookstore
36:14to buy those hideous books of his,
36:16which people referred to my novel as being idiotic,
36:19but if you read Rush's books,
36:21Jesus, God, Rush, come back to us.
36:23I'll tell you what.
36:24Is this the best-looking audience
36:27in American television, or what?
36:30So who lives in Rush Limbaugh's America?
36:33Surveys show that they are white and mostly men,
36:36middle-aged, well-educated,
36:38civic-minded suburbanites.
36:40They are pro-business and anti-taxes.
36:43They think big government social welfare programs
36:45are wasteful and don't work.
36:48They read their newspapers,
36:49but don't trust the national media.
36:52They trust Rush.
36:54Thank you very much.
36:57Many of the men and women in Rush Limbaugh's America
37:00live in places like Woodland, California,
37:03a town not so different from Cape Girardeau, Missouri.
37:11Every Saturday in Woodland,
37:13a group of Rush's fans gather at the Daily Grind Cafe
37:16to watch tapes of his television show.
37:19They've been listening to Rush
37:21since his days at KFBK in Sacramento.
37:24Don't worry about it.
37:25Don't worry about it.
37:26The first time I heard him,
37:29I thought, who is this guy?
37:31You know, but I was a road warrior in sales
37:34and nothing, he was my companion as I drove.
37:38And, you know, his humor is, it makes a point,
37:43but in a soft manner.
37:44He doesn't beat you over the head with it.
37:46Finally, there's someone out there speaking for me
37:49and saying exactly how I feel,
37:51and I don't have to hide behind the bush anymore.
37:54I can sit there and say,
37:56this is how I feel.
37:57There's somebody out there
37:58who's saying exactly what I want to say.
38:01One thing that bugs most people I know,
38:05we don't like the way Hillary Clinton
38:07has been shoved down our throats,
38:08and we don't like all the intrigue
38:12and the things that were going on
38:13with the Clinton health plan.
38:16I'm a person that's not real thrilled
38:20when women get involved like that.
38:23I mean, she's the first lady.
38:24She should act like a first lady.
38:27She's not acting like a first lady.
38:29Or even a lady.
38:31Yeah, true, or even a lady.
38:33That's it.
38:33My whole family used to be Democrats,
38:35and I was the first Republican when I turned 18.
38:38And since then, they've all become Republicans
38:40because the ideals that the Democrat Party
38:43used to stand for, hard work, the work ethic,
38:46you know, making your own way in life,
38:48have gone, and it's become a,
38:49the Democratic Party seems to be a party
38:50of special interest groups
38:52and getting re-elected and staying in power.
38:56We all are free-thinking people.
38:57We make our own decisions.
39:00And we listen to Rush
39:01because he says what we want to hear.
39:03And he says what we are thinking,
39:05and he says it publicly.
39:07Mega dittos, Rush.
39:10A whole lot of them call themselves,
39:12I'm fascinated by this,
39:13they call themselves ditto heads.
39:15They're, that is, they use the ditto.
39:18That is, they take anything that Rush says
39:19and they repeat it back.
39:21This is not about thought.
39:22This is not about argument or debate.
39:25This is about instruction.
39:26The press continues to report
39:28that ditto heads are simply mind-numbed robots
39:32waiting for marching orders every day issued by me.
39:35And that's not true.
39:37In fact, if there was ever a program
39:38that inspires independent thought,
39:41it is this one.
39:42You can't know the power of Rush Limbaugh
39:44until you go out and you campaign.
39:46Or you do a little talk show
39:48and people call up and they ask questions
39:50that parrot the thoughts of Rush.
39:53They don't even know they're doing that.
39:54What he's saying is sinking in out there.
39:58You cannot underestimate
40:00and you cannot overstate the power of Rush Limbaugh.
40:04Six years after arriving in New York,
40:06Rush Limbaugh's reach was truly gargantuan.
40:0920 million radio listeners every week,
40:12best-selling books,
40:13and a nightly television show.
40:15Mr. Rush Limbaugh!
40:17In the media democracy, reach is power.
40:21And in the 1994 campaign,
40:24Rush Limbaugh's power would propel
40:26the Republican revolution.
40:29I happened to be at the taping
40:32of Rush's TV show where Newt arrived
40:37because he had heard about this
40:39and he obviously heard Limbaugh on the radio
40:41and he wanted to see what the TV version looked like.
40:44And I watched his face during the taping
40:46and it was clear that he,
40:48it was almost as if he had made
40:49some kind of transformational discovery.
40:54Like, this is big
40:55and I want to be a part of this.
40:59One afternoon, we were in the middle of a big fight here
41:01and I called Rush Limbaugh's program director
41:04and I said, here's exactly what's going on.
41:06He turned on C-SPAN.
41:07He could see what was going on.
41:08It was an issue they cared about.
41:10And Rush went straight into talking about it
41:12and he's got somewhere between, I don't know,
41:14four and 14 million people, but it's a lot.
41:16And they're intense.
41:18An hour later, I had members walking up to me on the floor
41:20saying, what did you do?
41:23Because literally in some places,
41:25their phones were so jammed, they couldn't use them.
41:28Together, Newton Rush became the Republicans' heavyweight tag team,
41:32body slamming the Democrats time and time again.
41:35We have a chance to pass the toughest, smartest crime bill
41:40in the history of the United States.
41:43Like the summer of 94,
41:44when the Democrats' crime bill seemed like a sure winner
41:47until Rush weighed in.
41:50I want you to understand before we start
41:51what the crime bill really is.
41:53It's nothing more than a $30 million
41:54social welfare spending bill.
41:58It doesn't really address crime at all,
42:00as you will soon see.
42:01It makes the pretense of going for more cops
42:05on the street and so forth.
42:06But really all this is is a big pork barrel bill
42:09and the latest attempt to transfer income
42:13from one group to the next.
42:15President Clinton had a bill, E-I-E-I-O,
42:18and in that bill was lots of pork.
42:21E-I-E-I-O.
42:22On Capitol Hill, Republican politicians
42:24happily gobbled up Russia's pork ploy.
42:27The president's bill cost much too much,
42:30and it must be chopped.
42:32When Republicans succeeded in labeling the crime bill
42:34as social pork,
42:36I think we were right in labeling it that.
42:38But I don't think in the old days
42:39we would have had much of a chance to make the case.
42:41It was called a crime bill.
42:42The president of the United States said it was a crime bill.
42:45A fair number of state and local officials liked it
42:47because they got money from it.
42:49But really Rush Limbaugh and several others
42:51were able to bust through all of that
42:53and to label it as pork.
42:55It ended up, though the crime bill passed,
42:56they ended up doing a lot of damage
42:58to the crime bill and to the Clinton administration
43:00for supporting such a pork-laden, pork-ridden crime bill.
43:04Chop that pork off everywhere.
43:07Then we'll have a bill that's fair.
43:09There ought to be a little more truth in advertising here.
43:14People ought to know that Limbaugh is simply serving
43:18as a mouthpiece for the right-wing Republican leadership.
43:22Or maybe it's vice versa.
43:23I haven't quite got it figured out.
43:25I don't know if it's Gingrich working for Rush
43:27or if it's Rush working for Gingrich,
43:30but neither am I working for America.
43:31In fact, the partnership works both ways.
43:35Sometimes Rush and his listeners influence Newt.
43:38Sometimes Newt guides Rush.
43:40Let's be honest.
43:42Liberals hate grassroots voter pressure.
43:45In the heat of the 1994 campaign,
43:47as the Democratic Congress was trying to pass a bill
43:50curtailing the power of lobbyists in Washington,
43:53Newt Gingrich denounced it.
43:54Because I don't think members realize
43:56that buried in this so-called lobbying bill
43:59is a deliberate grassroots gag rule
44:03designed to kill precisely the pressure from back home
44:07that has been so effective in this Congress.
44:11But the Democrats charged that Gingrich was opposing the bill
44:14only to hurt them in the upcoming election.
44:16It was a contrivance because the provisions in the bill
44:20relating to grassroots lobbying were asked for
44:22by Newt Gingrich in writing.
44:27And for him to come up at the last minute
44:29at 7 p.m. the night before the bill is to come to the floor
44:32and for the first time in 18 months attack them
44:35and then to fax his material out to the talk show host
44:38all over the country that night
44:40obviously indicated that he had a strategy.
44:44He was, in effect, a propagandist.
44:46I want to read to you now a paragraph
44:47from a letter that Newt Gingrich sent
44:49to all Republican members
44:50advising them of the elements of this legislation.
44:55The next day, Limbaugh began attacking the bill.
44:58Some people have even called this hush-rush too
45:00because it is theorized that if you listen to me
45:04or watch this show or listen to any talk show host
45:06and as a result of hearing what you hear
45:08are motivated to call Washington
45:09that we could all be considered lobbyists
45:12or you could be and you'd have to report this.
45:14It's an effort to try to get people to shut up out of fear.
45:17By 11 o'clock the next day,
45:19our telephones were ringing off the hook
45:21from these people calling in about this
45:22horrible grassroots provision
45:24that was going to somehow impede their ability
45:27to contact their congressman.
45:28It was totally false,
45:30but it was an appealing falsehood and it worked.
45:34The lobby bill died in the final days of the campaign.
45:39I'll tell you what,
45:40you think liberalism isn't on its last legs,
45:42all you got to do is watch this campaign.
45:44Now look...
45:44Every day during the campaign,
45:46Rush held court in his electronic clubhouse.
45:49He would explain to his people how the campaign was going
45:52and his show told the party bosses
45:54what the people were thinking.
45:57He had become a unique political figure,
45:59a national precinct captain
46:01for the conservative movement and the Republican Party.
46:04We'll be back with marching orders next.
46:06And with 20 million listeners and a national TV audience,
46:09this was some precinct.
46:12We're going to go in,
46:13we're going to conquer,
46:14and we ain't getting out.
46:16Now if you want in on this mission,
46:19a crucial mission,
46:20be ready at dawn tomorrow,
46:22dawn Tuesday.
46:23If you're not interested in this mission,
46:25get out of the way,
46:26because we're coming through.
46:31And on election day,
46:33Russia's precinct did come through.
46:35Not one Republican incumbent lost a race.
46:38This is truly a wildly historic night.
46:42I mean, this is just...
46:44Welcome to the most important people in Washington.
46:51Before the 104th Congress convened,
46:55the new Republican members gathered
46:57to plot their strategy to revolutionize Washington.
47:00This is the greatest political story ever told,
47:04and you are now part of that story.
47:07At a conference in Baltimore,
47:08the party elders were on hand
47:10to initiate the 73 incoming freshmen
47:12and to impart their political wisdom.
47:14I urge you to act decisively
47:21and also quickly
47:23in this next hundred days
47:26and the next 200 days
47:30to reorient our government.
47:33But the real center of gravity at the event
47:36was Rush Limbaugh,
47:37the guest of honor
47:38and the man everybody wanted to hear.
47:41To many of these fervent newcomers,
47:45Rush was the man
47:45who made their victory possible.
47:47Hello, Steve Stockton.
47:48I'm Jack Brooks.
47:49Hey, how are you?
47:50It's great to see you.
47:50I'm Patty Stockton.
47:51And this is our wedding anniversary.
47:54Is that right?
47:54No kidding.
47:55I have a question for you.
47:56Rush has 20 million listeners.
47:59I think Rush's critics call him fanatical,
48:02but he's mainstream.
48:04The guys that are listening
48:05are mainstream.
48:08If you go out in the streets
48:09and the byways
48:10and you go down in Oklahoma,
48:12you go down in Kansas,
48:13you go down in Illinois,
48:15they're listening to Rush.
48:17He's a provocateur.
48:19He is a agent provocateur
48:22of what I would call
48:24progressive conservatism.
48:26I don't think he's going to run for office.
48:28I don't think he's going to
48:29lead a football team.
48:30I don't think he's going to
48:31lead the country.
48:33But in many ways,
48:34he's leading public opinion.
48:36And Lincoln said,
48:37you can accomplish anything you want
48:39if you've got public opinion behind you
48:41and you can't get anything done without it.
48:43Even in his moment of triumph,
48:46you couldn't help noticing
48:47that Rush seemed uncomfortable
48:49so close to his flock.
48:51He had taken the Limbaugh legacy
48:53far from Cape Girardeau.
48:54But he still seemed that uneasy boy
48:57who could solve his separateness
48:58only by reaching for a microphone.
49:01You people in the press
49:02have got to understand something.
49:04This country is conservative.
49:06It has been for a long time.
49:07Get used to it.
49:08You tried to change it
49:09and you failed
49:10and tonight proves it.
49:13And now at the height of his powers,
49:16Rush has already chosen his role
49:17in the new conservative era.
49:19One of the questions I was asked
49:21as the reporters were peppering me
49:23was, do you think Newt
49:25will moderate his stance
49:28now that he's the Speaker of the House?
49:30And I said, better not.
49:32He saw George Bush collapse completely
49:36because he said one thing
49:38and did something else.
49:39He broke a promise on taxes.
49:41And Rush believes that
49:43the last thing the Republicans need
49:44is for them to do that again.
49:46So he's going to be the enforcer.
49:48And he means it.
49:50You know, you're still friends, guys,
49:51but, you know,
49:52I'm going to call it as I see it.
49:54And if you go south on me,
49:56you know, you get whacked too.
49:57It would seem arrogant
50:01for a talk show host
50:02to threaten the Speaker of the House
50:03with a political whipping,
50:05but the constituents
50:06of Newt's new majority
50:07were Rush's people first.
50:09And Rush works the precinct every day.
50:15Surveys show that people
50:16who listen to Rush Limbaugh
50:17have 45% cleaner and brighter wash.
50:21You're somebody special
50:22when you listen to Rush Limbaugh.
50:24On the Excellence in Broadcasting Network,
50:26I am here, my friends,
50:27ensconced firmly and comfortably
50:29in the prestigious Attila the Hun chair.
50:33Back in his studio,
50:34Rush is now getting
50:35more than 500 faxes a day.
50:38But now it's not just ditto heads
50:40and party leaders
50:41who want to reach him.
50:43Even totems of the established order
50:45like Alan Greenspan,
50:47the chairman of the Federal Reserve Board,
50:49now offer Rush briefings.
50:52He is probably better informed
50:54if he chooses to be in the morning
50:55than almost anyone in the country.
50:57Because everyone,
50:58everyone has decided
50:59what's most important to them
51:00and tried to communicate that to him
51:02by 10 o'clock in the morning.
51:03It's quite remarkable,
51:05which is why I think he's so...
51:07That's why I think he can sustain
51:08what he's doing for a lot longer.
51:10Because when you're on top of the world,
51:12everyone is aiming to influence you.
51:15Rush Limbaugh sits at the center
51:17of the new politics.
51:19His enemies still denounce him,
51:21but now they're also trying to emulate him.
51:23They hope that a powerful liberal voice,
51:26perhaps a Mario Cuomo,
51:28will soon take the field to answer him.
51:30But it won't be easy,
51:32because Rush Limbaugh could not have been invented
51:34by politicians.
51:35He was a new voice
51:37who found his perfect moment,
51:39and only then did the politicians find him.
51:42Our new wired-up hyper-democracy
51:45promises the sound of many voices,
51:47the fury of competing ideas.
51:50What it has delivered, so far,
51:52is the sound and fury
51:53of this one uncontested voice.
51:58Having more fun than a human being
52:00should be allowed to hand.
52:03Rush Limbaugh,
52:04the majority maker
52:05and honorary member
52:07of the 104th House of Representatives.
52:12Dear Frontline,
52:22I am so grateful for Frontline.
52:24And now it's time for your letters.
52:26Our recent program,
52:27The Godfather of Cocaine,
52:29brought these viewer comments.
52:32Dear Frontline,
52:33I was fascinated by your program
52:35on the late Colombian drug lord,
52:36Pablo Escobar.
52:38Though the whole world knew him
52:39to be a vicious criminal,
52:40many Colombians you interviewed
52:41would speak only of his virtues
52:43as a family man,
52:44philanthropist, and so forth.
52:46What an elegant comment
52:47on the value relativism
52:48of our modern world.
52:50In 1995,
52:51you could capture the devil himself,
52:53and there would be plenty
52:53of friends, family members,
52:55and employees
52:55who would find some pretense
52:57to praise him.
52:58Paul Nelman,
52:59White River, South Dakota.
53:02The story on Pablo Escobar
53:03lacked the resentment
53:04the vast majority of Colombians
53:06have on him
53:07and any other individuals
53:08that oversee the traffic
53:09of drugs all over the world.
53:11More interviews
53:12on the average Colombian layman
53:14should have showed
53:15the distaste and lack of support
53:16these individuals have in Colombia.
53:19The interviews
53:20should have been more balanced,
53:22reflecting various points of view.
53:23Certainly,
53:25the documentary
53:25was focused on Escobar,
53:27but there were,
53:28are,
53:28and will be drug godfathers,
53:30because there is no better
53:31international policy
53:32on the subject.
53:34Legalization
53:34may be the answer.
53:36It should be given a chance.
53:37Marisa Landono,
53:38New Jersey.
53:39Dear Frontline,
53:40while Colombia
53:41and the world at large
53:42are undoubtedly better off
53:44without Pablo Escobar,
53:45I found barbaric
53:46the DEA agents
53:48and Colombian law enforcement
53:49officials posing with his body
53:51as if they were
53:51on a big game hunt.
53:53The triumph Escobar's pursuers
53:55felt at the end
53:56of their long quest
53:57should have been tempered
53:58with a modicum of decorum,
54:00and the photos
54:00of their gloating
54:01should certainly have remained
54:03behind Frontline's cameras.
54:05Sincerely yours,
54:06Hester Fuller,
54:07Jamaica Plain, Massachusetts.
54:10You can interact with Frontline
54:12by sending your comments
54:13by fax to 617-254-0243,
54:17by letter or home video
54:19to this address.
54:44I know you liberals
54:46are tuning in,
54:47you got the lights out,
54:48you're cowered in the corner,
54:49and you don't want to admit
54:52to anybody
54:52that you're watching this.
54:54We know you're there.
54:58You're scared.
55:02I just want to leave you
55:03with this.
55:05We feel your pain.
55:06I'm so sorry.
55:09I just want to leave you
55:10with this.
55:11All right.
55:12I don't know.
55:13I don't know.
55:14We'll be behind you.
55:15All right.
55:15Yeah.
55:16I don't know.
55:17I don't know.
55:17I don't know.
55:18I'm so sorry.
55:18I don't know.
55:23I don't know.
56:23For more information about this program, please call this toll-free number, 1-800-328-PBS1.
56:34This is PBS.