I loved the Rush Limbaugh show.  I have been listening to it for years and have always been comforted by his ever-increasing audience.  It showed that conservative ideas work.  The show serves a purpose — a purpose that we need fulfilled more now than ever.  Unfortunately, it is not serving that purpose fully now.  Rather than building on his legacy, we are wallowing in the sadness of his loss.

The guest hosts are very good — especially Mark Steyn — but the show is deteriorating into a daily homage to Rush.  Any tangential relationship with current subject matter is immediately met with a lengthy clip of Rush, showing how right he was.  We know that — he told us every day.

The hosts are effusive in their constant praise.  It seems they are in dread fear of anyone thinking they presume to be his equal.  No one is, no one is trying to be, and no one ever will be.  Rush would be the first to say this.  

The problem is that the show is getting a little maudlin.  Not good.  More than not good.

When I tune in, I am likely to hear Rush's voice.  Many of the callers the staff selects still have teary testimonials about his meaning in their lives. The testimonials and the Rush clips are all from the past.  Rush's only interest in the past was the altering and erasure of American history by the left.  The radio show was never about the past; it was about the urgency of the present and the future.

The show is an enormous asset to its owners and to America.  With over 20 million listeners who have learned to expect the unadulterated facts every day, it is a treasure without equal.  It is an invaluable gold mine of information and reassurance for conservatives.  When I feel the show is about the past, I will stop listening, and so will millions of others.

Rush always said he didn't want it "to be all about him."  I don't think he would rest peacefully if his audience were drifting away because everyone who runs the show is afraid of it not being all about him.

I have no idea what the big plan is for the future, but it had better appear soon.  The people running the show have to affirmatively break with the current maudlin tone and declare Rush's wake over — none of us will love him any less.  The owners are frittering away the fruits of all his work.