His dad's responsible

(Published May 25, 1993.)

It all started with Rush Jr.

Rush H. Limbaugh Jr., 1918-1990, attorney, father and namesake of the most listened-to radio talk host ever, was one of Cape Girardeau, Missouri's most unforgettable characters. An extremely close friend of our family and my father's attorney, Rush Jr. influenced me enormously in my early years as well. Rush III credits having grown up in his father's household for his having acquired his now famously formidable analytical powers, as well as his passionate interest in politics, government and current events.

There were no half-measures for Rush Jr.; whatever he believed, he believed passionately. He had opinions on just about everything and a ferocious capacity for sharing them as a nearly unmatched advocate. It could be conservative politics, sports, women, romance, aviation and the comparative attributes of airplanes (a consuming passion), education, the law, history, movies, classical music, business, antiquity or Christianity, a field of inquiry he had studied deeply as a Biblical scholar and Methodist lay leader.

Rush Jr. had been a national champion collegiate debater before graduating, in 1941, from the law school at his beloved University of Missouri, on the eve of World War II. That conflict found him an enthusiastic aviator in the Army Air Corps, with duty in the China-Burma Theater as a fighter and bomber pilot. Years later, I remembered him discoursing for hours on the various attributes of the P-40 and the P-51 ("the finest propeller aircraft ever made").

During the years he practiced law in Cape Girardeau, he was much sought-after as a speaker on patriotic themes and at veterans memorials. Always, there was the passionate devotion to the individual and to his freedom. He developed a special address featuring original research on the signers of Declaration of Independence.

An editorial tribute I wrote that appeared in the Southeast Missourian upon Rush Jr.'s death in December 1990 lauded his pioneering service in aviation in Cape Girardeau and characterized his powers of advocacy:

"... Rush's legendary fierceness as an advocate was so awe-inspiring that it marked him as a standout even in a family of distinguished attorneys."

The editorial continued, summarizing the political philosophy he so passionately espoused:

"At the center of Rush's well-developed philosophy was the individual -- each person a unique creature of his God. From this logically flowed a passion for that individual's freedom, understood as ordered liberty under God's laws, and a belief that the surest guarantee of that freedom lay in restraining and limiting the ever-growing power of governments at all levels.

"... He lived to see the sweeping triumphs of his vision in the limited role of government; the collapse of Communism because of the vigilance and courage of people like himself; and the awesome regenerative power of the American people, their liberties unleashed by the enactment, during the last decade, of policies he had fought for all his life."

Peter Kinder is Associate Publisher of the Southeast Missourian newspaper in Cape Girardeau, Missouri.