Rush to judgment.

• Author: Hazlett, Thomas W.

By some coincidence of nature I moved to Sacramento, California, in the very same month - September 1984 - that another American, also fascinated by politics and critical of liberal orthodoxy, did. He was just one-and-a-half years my senior, and we became friends. We enjoyed many chats about life, public policy, politics, economics, and women. I met his family, he met some of mine. And then in 1988 he moved to New York City where he became the most famous political commentator in America: Rush Limbaugh.

It is amusing to read journalists report on a person one knows, all the more so when the reporting is biting, tendentious, and ambitious. It is interesting to actually see both sides of a controversy: Rush is a walking controversy. It is annoying to know someone so famous that a good deal of my mail and telephone traffic is composed of messages from people (from French-Canadian businessmen to congressmen to women seeking courtship) trying to "get some information to Rush."

Now I see, as reported in The Washington Post by Jack Anderson, that the gurus who brought us ClintonCare and a Republican Congress have dedicated themselves to promoting a left-wing Rush. This is a sensational window into the thinking of the Clinton brain trust, a term that has more political than biological significance. In their view, devastating Democratic losses are simply the result of...nasty comments on talk radio.

The rise of Limbaugh is a phenomenal experiment in the consumer economics of broadcast markets. Rush was not plucked out of an Ivy League school and placed at the pinnacle of political debate in America by the networks, the Times, or the Post. He dropped out of college only one semester in. He bounced around in a disc jockey's chair for most of the next two decades and was fortunate to grab a chance at a Sacramento talk-radio outlet when he was well into his 30s. It was likely his last chance in show biz.

What propelled Limbaugh? Ratings. Somehow, Rush got tons of people to spin that dial to KFBK, 1530 on the AM dial. But did any national network or syndication snatch him up? Nay. No one would touch him. Too controversial. Too right-wing. Too opinionated. Too...never went to Harvard.

The makeshift distribution chain that put Limbaugh on 55 radio stations in August 1988 was entirely ad hoc - and people tuned in en masse. Now, with 650 stations and 22 million weekly listeners, Limbaugh is the King of Talk. He went on TV in September 1992, and ratings are...