Beck Is the Next Limbaugh

(NEWSER) - Once again the right-wing radio guys have managed to convince everyone that they are a great and powerful force to be reckoned with. David Brooks revisits the 2007 Republican primaries, when Rush, Hannity, Beck and company were all weak-kneed over Fred Thompson and Mitt Romney, but bashed “unreliable deviationists” John McCain and Mike Huckabee. What happened? Huckabee emerged as a star and McCain won. More»

Radio host discharged from hospital, says he's fine

(NEWSER) - Having seen the health care system up close, Rush Limbaugh says it's fine. "It was confidence-inspiring," he said of the hospital stay that started Wednesday when he suffered chest pains while vacationing in Hawaii. "They found absolutely nothing wrong," the talk-radio lightning rod said at the Queen's Medical Center in Honolulu, which discharged him today. "No arterial disease, no coronary disease whatsoever." More»

Talk-radio host suffered chest pains in Honolulu

(NEWSER) - Rush Limbaugh is recovering well after paramedics rushed him to a Honolulu hospital with chest pains yesterday afternoon. Rush was originally described as in serious condition, but now appears to be out of the woods and "resting comfortably," ABC News reports. A spokesman says it's not clear if he'll be able to return to the air on Jan. 4 as scheduled. More»

Limbaugh says he's mostly kidding, screwing with media

(NEWSER) - Rush Limbaugh insists he’s not controversial. “I say nothing that’s shocking or surprising,” he said during a three-hour interview with MSNBC. That's a caricature by detractors who want to portray him as far-right fringe. What he is, he added, is entertaining: "I turn people on. I educate them. I inform them. Republican moderates bore them silly." He says liberals are the real haters: “They are the real racist, sexist, bigots, and homophobes. They are the ones that look at people and see skin color, gender, sex orientation, victim, group." More»

Glenn Beck needs something really great to upstage this

(NEWSER) - The perennially publicity-hungry Miss America Pageant will shake up the judges' panel for the January event by adding a lightning rod: Rush Limbaugh. The right-wing titan isn't the first political blowhard to serve as a judge—MSNBC's Chris Matthews did a stint in 2007—but the pageant "has never been so overtly Republican as to invite one of the party’s largest mouthpieces to serve as a judge," writes John Katsilometes of the Las Vegas Sun. Circle Jan. 30 on your calendar now. More»