PBS journo Yamiche Alcindor shares WaPo's classless obituary for Rush Limbaugh — and offers up her own classless take

Sarah D | 1:42 PM on February 17, 2021

Lotta hate emanating from the liberal corners of Twitter today following the news of Rush Limbaugh’s passing.

At least the media aren’t letting themselves get swept up in it.

Take the Washington Post, for example:

Rush Limbaugh dies at 70. The conservative provocateur was the nation’s most popular radio talk-show host. https://t.co/N5LVJdFv54

— The Washington Post (@washingtonpost) February 17, 2021

Characterizing Rush Limbaugh as a “conservative provocateur” is actually pretty fair. He wore that title like a badge of honor.

What’s less fair is the Washington Post’s actual obituary, which is dedicated almost entirely to suggesting that cigar aficionado Rush Limbaugh had lung cancer coming to him and that he was an all-around terrible person.

Here’s how it kicks off:

Rush Limbaugh, who deployed comic bombast and relentless bashing of liberals, feminists and environmentalists to become the nation’s most popular radio talk-show host and lead the Republican Party into a politics of anger and obstruction, died Feb. 17 at 70.

The cause was complications from lung cancer, his wife, Kathryn Limbaugh, said at the start of his Wednesday radio show.

In February 2020, Mr. Limbaugh, a cigar aficionado who long defended tobacco use, told his audience that he had been diagnosed with advanced lung cancer. One night later, then-President Donald Trump broke with tradition and bestowed on him the Presidential Medal of Freedom, the nation’s highest civilian honor, during the State of the Union address.

In short, WaPo would not classify Limbaugh as an “austere political scholar.”