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<\/p>\nRUSH: Last week I neglected — I was just overwhelmed with so much news, quote, unquote, given my length of number of days gone here — former guest host on this program, the hilarious and brilliant economist from George Mason University, Walter Williams, passed away. They think that it was a heart attack. I was informed by my old buddy from the UC Davis economics group in Sacramento — well, Davis, California, the Sacramento market — Professor Hazlett, who was a good friend of Walter Williams. He sent me a note informing me. It was a letdown.<\/p>\n
He was a funny guy. He was fearless. He was born at a perfect time for him to be alive, given what he believed, and he was a seminal figure in the advancement of Reaganomics, the central premise of free market economics. He was invaluable. And we were very fortunate to be able to get him as a guest host on this program. He was one of the few who made it, who was not a broadcaster. You understand how tough that is to do?<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
And, by the way, I have to tell you, one of my big bugaboos about all of broadcasting — and I\u2019m gonna date myself here — is how the increasing number of people hired have no experience in broadcasting at all. I mean, it\u2019s true in cable TV. It\u2019s true in cable news. It\u2019s true in radio. And there\u2019s no stopping it now because there are so many networks and stations and outlets that you gotta get the people from somewhere. And so people have found their way, in some cases, to the highest levels of broadcasting never having done it before.<\/p>\n
And then you have people like me who sweated and slaved for 40 years in little trash markets — I\u2019m sorry. Not trash — tiny markets. You know, you go out there, and you sweat and slave, and you work two shows a day, and you do all this stuff, and even then you haven\u2019t proven yourself to \u2019em. And after doing all that, here come people who\u2019ve never done it before, and they got hired and some of them work out and some of them don\u2019t. But look. I\u2019ve rid myself of that point of view, because it\u2019s impossible to maintain it now.<\/p>\n
You know, Howard Cosell had a name for this in sports. He called it the jockocracy, meaning people that have never been behind a microphone get hired to do commentary, analysis on game broadcasts. He was really talking about ex-players hired in the ABC Monday Night Football booth, really bugged the hell out of him, and I understood why. You know, people in broadcasting sweat and slave and they put in all kinds of hours, and they just work incredibly difficult conditions, like anybody else that\u2019s an apprentice and moving up. And it overtook Cosell and his position in the business and it overtook me.<\/p>\n
I have modernized. And that\u2019s why Walter Williams — you don\u2019t know how tough it was for me to sign off on this. They said, “We think Walter Williams would be good.”<\/p>\n
I said, “On what basis?”<\/p>\n
“Well, he\u2019s got some really great economic ideas that pretty much parallel yours.”<\/p>\n
I said, “That\u2019s not how we hire guest hosts.”<\/p>\n
“Well, we think he\u2019d be really good.”<\/p>\n
I said, “Okay. I\u2019ll go along for a test.” And Walter Williams passed the test. It was a sad thing to hear of his passing, and I meant to mention it on Friday.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
RUSH: Former guest host on this program, the hilarious and brilliant economist from George Mason University, Walter Williams, passed away.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":49,"featured_media":375402,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_et_pb_use_builder":"","_et_pb_old_content":"","_et_gb_content_width":"","ngg_post_thumbnail":0},"categories":[12,1],"tags":[],"yoast_head":"\n