I wrote Rush on the evening of February 3, 2020, the day he had announced his diagnosis of stage IV lung cancer:
Rush: I write for Power Line and you kindly responded to my request for information about one of your [2004] segments on Rathergate back when the film Truth came out in 2015. I just dug out your email message responding to my request in order to get your address. Forgive me for taking advantage of it today.
I first heard your show on our way home from a weekend in Wisconsin after the last Senate Judiciary Committee panel on Clarence Thomas. You were on fire. I couldn’t believe the power of your analysis and the depth of your insight. There was less of your humor that day than usual (as I came to see), more of the indignation we were all feeling. I have turned to you as frequently as possible since then for the laughs, for the encouragement, for the spirit and for your analysis. You are irreplaceable.
We join our prayers to those of your millions of fans around the world. I trust you are getting the best care available and will find the way out of this if there is one.
All best wishes…
In his brief response one can see facets of his character including his humility, his kindness, his generosity, his encouragement, his enthusiasm — all put on display at the moment he had been given his death sentence:
Scott! I know who you are!! You are huge, a giant in the movement and blogosphere…all of you at Power Line are inspiring and always supportive…you always seem to understand when others don’t “get it.” It’s greatly appreciated.
When word came of Rush’s death yesterday, I thought of the assessment of an “eminent friend” of Samuel Johnson quoted by Boswell in the concluding words of Boswell’s Life of Johnson: “He has made a chasm, which not only nothing can fill up, but which nothing has a tendency to fill up.–Johnson is dead.–Let us go to the next best:–there is nobody; no man can be said to put you in mind of Johnson.”
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