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Left rejoices over Rush Limbaugh’s lung cancer announcement

While conservatives expressed their support, ex-CNN personality Reza Aslan and others celebrated the news.
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Calvin
Freiburger
Calvin Freiburger

February 4, 2020 (LifeSiteNews) – The American conservative landscape was rocked Monday by talk radio giant Rush Limbaugh’s announcement that he has advanced lung cancer, provoking an outpouring of support from friends and supporters, glee from left-wing detractors, and well-wishes from many in between.

“I have to tell you something today that I wish I didn’t have to tell you,” Limbaugh said on his February 3 broadcast. “I have been diagnosed with advanced lung cancer, diagnosis confirmed by two medical institutions back on January 20th. I first realized something was wrong on my birthday weekend, January 12th.”

He said he considered keeping the struggle private out of a desire to not “burden anybody with it,” but ultimately concluded that sharing the news would be better than it leaking out.

“My intention is to come here every day I can and to do this program as normally and as competently and as expertly as I do each and every day, because that is the source of my greatest satisfaction professionally, personally,” Limbaugh continued. “I’ve had so much support from family and friends during this that it’s just been tremendous. I told the staff today that I have a deeply personal relationship with God that I do not proselytize about. But I do, and I have been working that relationship (chuckles) tremendously, which I do regularly anyway, but I’ve been focused on it intensely for the past couple of weeks.”

He noted that he had been experiencing shortness of breath but was suffering almost no symptoms at the time of his Monday comments, and would be taking the next few days off to “figure out the treatment course of action and have further testing done.”

“You’ve been one of the greatest sources of confidence that I’ve had in my life,” Limbaugh told his audience. “So, I hope I will be talking about this as little as necessary in the coming days. But we’ve got a great bunch of doctors, a great team assembled. We’re at full-speed ahead on this, and it’s just now a matter of implementing what we are gonna be told later this week.”

Limbaugh, who has been on the air since 1984, has been credited with ushering in the rise of conservative talk radio and alternative media more broadly. The shocking news inspired an outpouring of support from friends and fans in politics and media, including the President of the United States:

“Social conservatives should pray for Rush at this time,” LifeSiteNews co-founder and managing director Steve Jalsevac said Tuesday. “Although there are things in his past life, such as his multiple marriages, that we could never condone, he has tended to be publicly supportive of the pro-life movement on his highly influential daily talk show.” 

“He defended the Covington students from the false media charges about their behavior at last year's March for Life, has condemned America' abortion culture for causing insensitivity to killing, criticized the mainstream media for not covering the Gosnell trial and even criticized Pope Francis for seeming to put his climate change concerns ahead of dealing with the Church sex abuse scandals,” Jalsevac explained. “His record on the homosexual/transgender issues is unfortunately, like that of President Trump, a mixed and likely poorly informed one. All in all, should he not survive his current cancer battle, his death would be a significant loss for all American conservatives.” 

Rep. Tulsi Gabbard of Hawaii, one of the Democrats vying for the party’s presidential nomination, extended her sympathies to Limbaugh and his family from the other side of the political aisle:

Gabbard’s unconditional tweet seems to have been an exception among the political Left, however, with various figures (including controversial ex-CNN personality Reza Aslan) taking the opportunity to either celebrate Limbaugh’s diagnosis, express general contempt for him, or suggesting that there’s some sort of poetic irony to his misfortune:

Rush’s brother David Limbaugh, who is an attorney and prolific Christian author in addition to a political pundit in his own right, expressed gratitude to the “millions of prayer warriors” who have expressed their thoughts and prayers for his family.