FOG BLOG NEWS LOG: RUSH LIMBAUGH DIES OF LUNG CANCER CAUSED BY SMOKING:

Rush Limbaugh Dies at 70; Turned Talk Radio Into a Right-Wing Attack Machine

With a following of 15 million and a divisive style of mockery, grievance and denigrating language, he was a force in reshaping American conservatism.

Rush Limbaugh died from lung cancer after denying smoking's risk. Why'd he believe his lie?

If liars believe what they're peddling, they can better spread their lies by having more confidence in their presentation........What do you say about a person who lies by dismissing the danger of something only to succumb to it? I’m thinking of radio host Rush Limbaugh, who died this week at age 70 from lung cancer after denying that cigarette smoke was a serious health threat (it “takes 50 years to kill people, if it does,” he said) and smoking for decades...That anyone gets cancer is tragic. But I find it equally tragic that Limbaugh consistently sought to bend facts about public health to the reality he wanted to live in, and thereby endangered the listeners who believed him.

His downplaying of the dangers of smoking was merely a warmup for his participation in PolitiFact's 2020 “lie of the year”: Covid-19 denial. Limbaugh’s repeated lies about the coronavirus included everything from conspiracy theories involving Dr. Anthony Fauci to his suggestion that the virus was nothing more than a stunt by people opposed to President Donald Trump.

But it goes from tragic to mind-bending when one of the purveyors of these lies — someone as knowledgeable, media literate and savvy as Limbaugh — seems to believe the very falsehoods they are spreading, lives as though they are true and then gets stung by them as a result.