When Poppy carried Rush’s bags
by digby
My friend tristero, blogger extraordinaire and talented composer (also known as Richard Einhorn) is in town for a performance of his master work “Voices of Light” at the Disney Hall this week-end. (If you are in LA and want to see it you can get tickets here.)
Anyway, we were chatting last night and he reminded me of this, which I had remembered as being someone other than Limbaugh himself:
There was never a doubt that Limbaugh would support the reelection of George H. W. Bush in 1992 — he was the Republican candidate — but Rush wasn’t enthusiastic. Bush struck him as a preppy, country club moderate, an Ivy League snob who, as a candidate in the Republican primaries of 1980, had dismissed Ronald Reagan’s supply-side ideology as voodoo economics. Not only that, Bush had raised taxes.
[…]
Early in the summer of 1992, Roger Ailes, who was working for President Bush, made the connection. The president invited Limbaugh to accompany him to the Kennedy Center and spend a night at the White House. Bush personally carried Limbaugh’s bag from the elevator of the White House residence to his room, a gesture Rush never forgot. That night he called his mother and brother from the Lincoln bedroom. “Guess where I’m sleeping tonight,” he said. Bush might not be Reagan, but he was the president of the United States.
This too:
PBS’ Frontline said that Limbaugh “went all out for Bush.” Bush appeared on Limbaugh’s program in September 1992, and Limbaugh introduced Bush at a late-stage campaign rally on November 2.
Following Rush’s introduction, Bush took the stage and said:
BUSH: Thank you very much. Thank you so much. Here we go for the last day. Thank you all. Thank you so very much. Thank you. May I start by thanking Rush Limbaugh. And last night, Governor Clinton was at the Meadowlands with Richard Gere and other Hollywood liberals.
AUDIENCE: Boo-o-o!
BUSH: Well, here’s a good deal for you. Let Governor Clinton have Richard Gere. I’ll take Rush Limbaugh any day.
If anyone wants to know just how the GOP became a bunch of extremist freaks, this is a good place to start: right smack dab in the middle of the GOP establishment.
.