Diehard Rush Limbaugh supporters are hoping this, too, shall pass. But I'm banking on the end of Rush's influence after he called a Georgetown University student a "slut."

It had the "death by tongue and arrogance" feel that has spelled the end to the power of other folks throughout history. Sen. Joe McCarthy's Communist-hunting campaign wound down after an Army lawyer called him on his craziness in 1954 with this line that's gone down in history: "Have you no sense of decency, sir? At long last, have you left no sense of decency?"

Don Imus' radio career never really came back to life after his "nappy headed hos" comment in 2007 about the Rutgers women's basketball team. I was a big Imus fan but you could sense the arrogance creeping into the show for about a year leading up to the incident. His wife was on all the time, touting this and that.

Sarah Palin's decline can be traced to her "crosshairs" map of candidates that included the then candidacy of Congresswoman Giffords, later shot in Arizona. Palin's tongue got her in more trouble as she responded to critics about the crosshairs map, charging them with blood libel -- a term offensive to Jewish people.

Drug addiction and deafness didn't bring down Rush. But arrogance, and a tongue that didn't think first, might.

And one more thing: He did not have A-list advertisers. Carbonite, Citrix, Go To Meeting, Legal Zoom, ProFlowers, Quicken Loans, Sleep Number and Sleep Train? Was this an early sign that his demise was on its way, anway?

(S-R archives)

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