Orel Family

One month ago, I took a business trip to Austin, Texas. I turned on the radio in the rental car, and first thing I heard was a weather report. "Cover your plants, we may have Austin's first frost of the season tonight," came the warning. I laughed; after all, our first frost in Michigan this year was in September, and it was currently December 11. After the weather report, the station's scheduled programming came on. It was  Rush Limbaugh . Over the next 6 minutes, he managed to tie "global warming" in to a liberal agenda that included everything from taxing the wealthy to policies on illegal immigration to gun control to calls to ban NFL kickoffs . "That's how the left does it," he explained. "They guilt you in to accepting their global warming belief." As I write, it is 57 degrees Fahrenheit here in West Bloomfield. The normal high temperature for January 12th is 32 degrees. It is the 7th day of our warm-up. Local ski areas ...

Six years ago, Rush Limbaugh went on national TV and said, regarding Eagles quarterback Donovan McNabb: Sorry to say this, I don't think he's been that good from the get-go. I think what we've had here is a little social concern in the NFL. The media has been very desirous that a black quarterback do well. There is a little hope invested in McNabb, and he got a lot of credit for the performance of this team that he didn't deserve. The defense carried this team. Much has been said about Limbaugh's now ended effort to be part of an ownership group for the St. Louis Rams. Outcries over things he supposedly said, or in some cases about things he never said. But to me, whatever may be in discussion (including another remark comparing NFL football games to gang fights), that one remark about Donovan McNabb was the key. More than his "conservative" politics, more than his positions on race (and, let's be clear: Rush is too smart to say explicitly many of ...