'Rushed' to the hospital ~ By Kathy Shaidle

Commentary from WorldNetDaily

By Kathy Shaidle Posted: January 02, 2010 ~ 11:36 am Eastern © 2010 This column was going to be fairly low key. The days between Christmas and New Years are the no man's land of conservative talk radio – a week of substitute hosts and "best of's" as most of the stars take a break. Then late Wednesday night, news spread that Rush Limbaugh had been hospitalized in Hawaii, suffering from chest pains. Immediately, the blogs and Twitter were abuzz. I set up a special search column on TweetDeck, using the hashtag #rushlimbaugh. After about ten minutes, I had to close it down. The calls for prayers and the "get well soon" messages and comments were interspersed with hateful "death wishes" and nasty jokes from leftists. Radio Equalizer's Brian Maloney reprinted some of these messages at his blog, censoring a few of them out of necessity. Not surprisingly, someone at the unreliable and mostly liberal megasite Wikipedia even edited Limbaugh's entry to pronounce him dead! Some of the fans' responses to the hatred were extraordinary. One commenter said: "Rush is irreplaceable. If he needs a heart transplant, he can have mine." Another noted on Twitter: "So Rush Limbaugh can't say he wants Obama to fail but liberals can say they want Rush Limbaugh to die?" My favorite: "The same people who want Rush to die want to run our health care!" Ed Morrissey at HotAir remembered an email he'd received from Limbaugh during a personal crisis; it offered an insight into the "real" Rush and made for touching reading. The next day – when the searches for "Rush Limbaugh" reached the "volcanic" level at Google Trends – the irony of the situation hit me. Who do millions of us turn to when there's bad news? Rush Limbaugh. But who do we turn to if Rush isn't around, because Rush is the "bad news"? In this case, few of the other "big names" were scheduled to be on the air either. Bill Bennett was, however, and he offered his best wishes to Rush on his radio show, and at the National Review's blog, The Corner. He was joined by regular Rush Limbaugh substitute host, Mark Steyn, who wrote:

Rush took a rotting, abandoned hulk – AM radio – and reinvented it as a new conservative medium. Critics such as our former colleague David Frum miss the larger point: It's not just about his opinions on this or that policy issue or candidate, but about a strategic savvy few other folks on our side of the aisle can demonstrate. I owe him a lot personally, and I hope he rests up for whatever time he needs and then comes back and sticks it to the naysayers till mid-century.

Dr. Walter E. Williams sat in for Rush on Thursday afternoon and offered listeners a brief update on Limbaugh's condition:

"Rush is in good and stable condition, comfortable – as comfortable as one can be in a hospital while on vacation – and he's in good hands."

Then came New Years Day and good news: Rush was released from hospital. At a televised press conference, he explained that a battery of tests showed no sign of coronary disease, and a heart attack was ruled out as the cause of his chest pains (FREE video). (You can also the video below this story.) While the origin of his discomfort remains a mystery, Rush was certain of one thing: "I don't think there's one thing wrong with the American health care system." Rush also posted a special message to his fans at his web site, thanking them for their "prayers and good thoughts" – and promising to return to the "Golden EIB Microphone" mid-week. There was some other news in the world of talk radio, of course, although none so dramatic. READ FULL STORY >

January 01, 2010 - Rush Limbaugh Speaks to Reporters in Hawaii About His Chest Pains

Video provided by mghoft