I usually bounce between sports talk radio stations when I’m in my car — and all the silliness, speculation and mud-slinging that brings — but I’ve been monitoring the news stations more closely in the past few days.
Which is how I came across Rush Limbaugh on Wednesday afternoon while I was driving to the weekly news conference of Arizona men’s basketball coach Sean Miller.
I had parachuted into the middle of a discussion about Wednesday night’s “Together we Thrive” memorial service at McKale Center. The caller was talking about President Reagan addressing the national from the Oval Office in the wake of the space shuttle Challenger tragedy, saying that was more dignified than what happened at Wednesday night’s event, which many have decried for its “pep rally” tone.
According to this story, Limbaugh was among those critics, but, apparently, he was at a stage of his show when he was trying (pretending?) to achieve a level of civility that was called for by President Obama.
He pointed out to the caller that there were many students in the crowd who might have been looking for a reason to cheer.
“Their football team didn’t do so well this year, and their basketball team is off to a bad start,” Limbaugh said.
Well, given the frustration over the football team’s five-game losing streak to end the season, we have to give him that. Meanwhile, Miller’s team might be looking for a signature win, but 14-3 isn’t too bad.
On the truthiness scale, I’d have to give Limbaugh a grade of “half-right” on Arizona sports.