Rush is Right - Again!

by Crystal Laramore

Have you listened to Rush’s speech at the CPAC conference? Listen, for those of you who live in a cave, the man’s formal radio name is Rush Limbaugh. But, Rush is so famous you need only utter his first name to see fan and foe alike become weak in the knees and suffer from sweaty-palm syndrome. Yes, Rush has made it into the circle of the infamous that need only one of their names uttered for the masses to know to whom you are referring: Hillary. Diana. Cher. Obama. Elvis. Rush. Not even George Clooney, Sean Penn or Alec Baldwin has made it this far in the fame stratosphere.

I digress. If you haven’t listened to Rush’s speech please, for the love of your country and your party, your principles and your wallet, your 401K and your business and most importantly your children and your grandchildren, do so. You can find it on www.rushlimbaugh.com/home. BTW, it’s his first televised address to the nation!

In the spirit of not spoiling the fun you will have and the immense sense of pride that will fill your heart by listening to this great speech, I’ll not talk much about it. I’ll just tell you how it made me feel. One American, in her living room, trying to sit on the sofa, watching and listening to someone, finally, tell it like it is. Wow! Rush said everything we disenfranchised conservatives have been wanting to scream at the President and his staff, through the transparent walls, since the historic inauguration. Every word, every syllable, every vowel, of Rush’s speech was undeniably RIGHT! As AC said “It was akin to Sara Palin’s first speech before the ‘handlers’ got in the way and started filtering her speeches”.

Did you see Remember the Titans? I must have watched that movie eight times. The movie made me want to jump up and dance and scream “go team!” It was just an all around feel good movie. It was a movie that inspired the best within us. Rush’s speech was all that and then a little somethin’, somethin’. It was real life conservative talk show host gone wild (in the true conservative sense of the word, snicker). His speech certainly made me want to dance and I was screaming “GO TEAM!” Who needs to watch Remember the Titans again and again for that Rah! Rah! feeling? All ya need is Rush. Whew! And what a rush it is to watch his first televised address to the nation! Remember the Titans-8. Rush’s first televised address to the nation-12.

When Oprah says something like The Obama’s have really brought back the family dinner to America, in reference to people sitting around their own table having dinner together as a family instead of going out to eat, (talk about S-P-I-N!) you really need a good dose of Rush to understand that it’s b/c Obama has ruined our financial foundation and we CAN’T AFFORD to go out to eat at the restaurant! And since I own a restaurant I have an up close and personal understanding of this.
When Oprah and her cronies, who gather round on Friday’s to play Rush, say something like the economic crisis we’ve been in for over 18 months…again, ya really need Rush to temper the idiots and keep your thoughts grounded lest you vote for someone b/c they can play the sax or speak from a teleprompter.

Since about 1992 after Bill Clinton was jazzing it up on the Arsenio Hall show, I’ve been listening to Rush. At the time I worked in the oil & gas industry for Baker Hughes in Houston. (It’s just Houston. No need to say Houston, TX. There’s only one Rush and there’s only one Houston.) Previously I had voted for Reagan and Bush Sr. Then all of a sudden a young hip dude who was running for President was playing my favorite instrument on one of my favorite late night talk shows. Hmmmmm. Maybe this is what our country needs (I ignorantly thought to my ignorant self), a leader who is in touch. Snicker. Little did I know…?

Anyway, this was the day before cell phones were a dime a dozen so I remember talking to my father, Noland Laramore, on a traditional land-line and sharing with him my extensive knowledge on how one should vote for a president. Only now can I laugh b/c only now can I picture what his face must have looked like. He was about 300 miles away and had to formulate a Steelers-like game plan in order to save his eldest child’s political soul. He had limited time and limited resources. The men in white coats were not an option. He’s a middle class working man you see.

Oprah always talks about having “Aha” moments and even though my father couldn’t tell you the difference between Oprah or Cher he certainly had an “aha” moment. Rush! Aha! That’s it. That’s how I’ll save her. Rush! And save me he did.
Being the young, on my way to a tree-hugging feminist I was, my father knew he shouldn’t TELL me to do anything. He knew he was treading on shaky, Californiaesque ground. But he also knew I was smart and hungry for knowledge-always hungry for knowledge. He also probably had a pretty good idea how much his little girl adored him so he definitely had a home court advantage in this game of saving his daughters political soul. There are many words parents throughout history have spoken to their children that are profound and life-saving but I wonder how often parents speak the words “Baby, you need to listen to Rush”.

Then he said “Now listen to me, you may not like him at first. He may come off a little strong, crass and obnoxious (for your feminist little heart) at first but just promise me you’ll listen to him for a week before you form an opinion”. C’mon now. This was my father! I can’t ever remember him asking me for anything. And this is was his ace in-the-hole favor to me? To listen to some AM (are you kidding me? AM?) talk radio host? Ok, Daddy, if that’s what you want. At this time in my life I was about 27 (I was born in late 1964-very last of the baby boomers). I was single, climbing the corporate ladder, rich (in my infantile mind) and needed nothing from anyone-especially a man!

The only man I ever needed was my daddy. And since Daddy wanted me to listen to this Rush guy and since Daddy seemed so desperate for me to do so…I hit the button that whisked me from rock N roll mindless words to the dreary world of AM. My first thought was “Are you kidding me? This guy is an a$$. He is soooo arrogant! Who does he think he is??? And believe me this was a bigger favor than I could have imagined me ever doing for my father. It was tough to listen to some stranger talk negatively, and in such a know-it-all manner, about the man I just saw play the sax on the Arsenio Hall show. Why? Because it made me feel good to watch a potential president swoon his audience with saxy jazz and it did not make me feel good to begin to realize that I almost made a complete and utter fool of myself.

It also did not take a whole week for me to snap out of the warm fuzzy feeling syndrome that have so many people trapped today. But never-the-less, my daddy did call “Just to check in” on me every other day or so. Mr. Laramore would always ask “Soooo, how ya liking him so far?” “What do you think”? Understand that he never once asked how I felt. Hell, he probably KNEW how I felt. I felt Agitated. No, he always asked me what I thought. You can debate thought, you cannot debate feelings. My goodness that man is smart!!!

About four years later I read Atlas Shrugged by Ayn Rand. Until a couple of years ago I always wondered if Rush had ever read the book. Clearly, I should have known the answer. Every great thinker surely has read this book; silly me for ever doubting. He’s not a president and he doesn’t play one on TV, but he could, he should, would he?...A few times in the past I even dared call into the great Rush Limbaugh radio show just to ask him. Since I only had an hour for lunch, I never got through. Heck, I never made it past the busy signal!

My family is peppered with war veterans, and current-serving members of all branches of the military. There are many purple hearts and silver stars in my family. So, in July of 04 I shipped off to Baghdad, Iraq and served with the DOS for almost two years. My job was to help stand up the U.S. Embassy and anything else that needed doing. My duty was to serve my country, to serve the Iraqi people and to serve to make my father and my UB proud. While I was there I sent Atlas Shrugged to my father for his birthday. It was my gift to him for turning me onto Rush. Not exactly a fair trade. I also sent him the Limbaugh letter for Christmas a couple of times. Still…not quite there. Actually, there’s really nothing I can do for him that can compare to what he did for me, but I’ll never stop trying! You may call it silly, but it was one of the best gifts anyone has ever given me. I’ll be forever grateful that my father loved me and his country enough to share Rush with me.

While I lived in the big metropolis of Houston, politics didn’t really enter my life in a tangible way, but I never turned the radio off of Rush from 11 am to 2 pm. And the dedication paid off. Several years ago I left the big city and the big corporate paycheck and headed east where the pine trees grow a hundred feet tall and the locals have been round these parts for as many years. I beeboped into this whisper of a town with big city ideas and a big city attitude “I can do anything I want b/c I’m an American”. I bought a building on the courthouse square (no sense making a ripple, splashes are more fun), turned it into a restaurant and applied for a liquor license…

…Stay tuned.

Check out my other blog www.sexinthewoods.blogspot.com