Ross Douthat is obviously (well, it’s obvious to me) right to think that Rush Limbaugh is an entertainer and not someone who ought to be considered a spokesman for the Republican party. Too bad El Rushbo doesn’t see himself that way. In a piece for the (splendid) Daily Beast, Christopher Buckley observes that Limbaugh took the occasion of William F Buckley’s death as a cue to annoint himself WFB’s successor:
A few days later, as I was planning WFB’s memorial service at St. Patrick’s Cathedral, I was approached by an intermediary, a big player in the vast right-wing conspiracy, with the suggestion (“Wouldn’t it be appropriate….”) that Rush should give the eulogy. I declined, partly on the grounds that Mother Church maintains that a mass is a sacrament and not a Friar’s Club roast. To enforce this, she sets a strict limitation on eulogies: a max of two. I had asked Henry Kissinger to give one, and had myself planned to give the other.
I am not generally a listener to day-time radio, but in the days following WFB’s death, a number of people mentioned having listened to Rush’s show that day.
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