PRESIDENT BUSH, ON A VISIT TO America's most popular radio show, addresses the host as "Russ." Hillary Clinton, in a cheerful diatribe against the host, calls him "Lim-bough," as in "Ow! That hurts!" William F. Buckley Jr. says it "Limbo" -- a place a bit north of where many liberals would send this right-wing multimedia motormouth sensation.
. Say the name, with due basso-profundo pomp, this way: Rush (as in rush to hear him while he's hot) Limbaugh (as in awe).
It should not be hard to pronounce; these days it is hard to avoid. Rush (friend and foe alike are on a first-name basis) talks about political and social issues for 15 hours a week, and 13 million listeners tune in on 529 radio stations. He writes a book of his opinions -- a $22 souvenir program, really, of the radio show -- and it sits for weeks atop the New York Times best-seller list; with 1.1 million copies in print a month after its publication date, The Way Things Ought to Be is the hottest hard-cover nonfiction title since Iacocca. Then he tries TV, and within a few weeks his late-night harangue is beating Whoopi Goldberg in the ratings and is up there with David Letterman and Arsenio Hall. These days, Rush is so busy that, as he lamented on the radio recently, "I don't even know what century I'm living in!"
Oh, about the 35th B.C., those on the receiving end of his conservative cudgel would say. But then, Radio Free Limbaugh is designed to raise liberals' dander quotient. Consider: a vote for Clinton-Gore is "a vote for socialism." Rush has been on Slick Willie's case all year, rejoicing in the early tales of infidelity, assiduously promoting this month's mission-to- Moscow story. He loves to rag Democratic politicians: Ted Kennedy, of course, but also "former U.S. cadaver -- ahem, Senator -- Alan Cranston" or "Fort Worthless Jim Wright, the former Sleazer of the House." What about Perot's 50 cents gas tax? "We could've gone ahead and let Saddam Hussein win and accomplished the same thing."
In one sense, the comet of Limbaugh's rise is the traditional American success story, rewritten for the Reagan-Bush era. Less than a decade ago, he was out of radio and out of work; he was fired from five jobs, broke twice. Now he is rich and famous; this June he was an overnight guest at the White House, and the President carried Limbaugh's bag. His juicy fulminations against "feminazis" (militant pro-abortionists), "commie libs" (pretty much anyone to the left of Archduke Ferdinand) and "environmentalist wackos" (tree huggers) have won him the admiration and courtship of many of the right people, and the anger and fear of many of the left people. What hot- blooded conservative could ask for anything more? "This show is not about what you think," he often intones. "This show is about what I think." Bombast away!
% With his convulsively entertaining style, Limbaugh is also the prime exemplar of the crucial debate America is now having with itself, at the decibel level of a Metallica concert. What should the level of political discourse be in an election campaign, or on radio and TV, or at the office water cooler? At what point does comic exaggeration shade into slander? When everyone is shouting, is anybody listening?