Rush Hudson Limbaugh III ( /ˈlɪmbɔː/; born January 12, 1951) is an American radio talk show host and political commentator. Since he was 16 Limbaugh has worked a series of disc jockey jobs. His talk show began in 1984 at Sacramento radio station KFBK, featuring his ongoing format of political commentary and listener calls. In 1988 Limbaugh began broadcasting his show nationally from radio station WABC in New York, New York. He currently lives in West Palm Beach, Florida, from where he broadcasts the The Rush Limbaugh Show, the highest-rated talk-radio program in the United States.
In the 1990s Limbaugh's books The Way Things Ought to Be (1992) and See, I Told You So (1993) made The New York Times Best Seller list. Limbaugh frequently criticizes, in his books and on his show, what he regards as liberal policies and politicians, as well as what he perceives as a pervasive liberal bias in major U.S. media.
Rush Hudson Limbaugh III was born in Cape Girardeau, Missouri, the son of Mildred Carolyn "Millie" (née Armstrong) and Rush Hudson Limbaugh, Jr. His father was a lawyer and a U.S. fighter pilot who served in the China Burma India Theater of World War II. His mother was a native of Searcy, Arkansas. The name "Rush" was originally chosen for his grandfather to honor the maiden name of family member Edna Rush.
Keith Theodore Olbermann ( /ˈoʊlbərmən/; born January 27, 1959) is an American political commentator and writer. Most recently, he was the chief news officer of the Current TV network and the host of the Current TV weeknight political commentary program, Countdown with Keith Olbermann, until March 30, 2012, a program he hosted with the same title and a similar format on MSNBC from March 2003 to January 2011.
During his time at MSNBC, Olbermann established a niche in cable news commentary, gaining note for his pointed criticism of mainly right-leaning politicians and public figures such as Fox News Channel commentator Bill O'Reilly,President George W. Bush and 2008 Republican presidential nominee, John McCain. Though he has been described as a "liberal", he has resisted being labelled politically, stating "I'm not a liberal. I'm an American".
Olbermann spent the first twenty years of his career in sports journalism. He was a sports correspondent for CNN and for local TV and radio stations in the 1980s, winning the Best Sportscaster award from the California Associated Press three times. He co-hosted ESPN's SportsCenter from 1992 to 1997. From 1998 to 2001, he was a producer and anchor for Fox Sports Net and a host of Major League Baseball on Fox.
Patrick Joseph "Pat" Buchanan ( /bjuːˈkænɨn/; born November 2, 1938) is an American paleoconservative political commentator, author, syndicated columnist, politician and broadcaster. Buchanan was a senior advisor to American Presidents Richard Nixon, Gerald Ford, and Ronald Reagan, and was an original host on CNN's Crossfire. He sought the Republican presidential nomination in 1992 and 1996. He ran on the Reform Party ticket in the 2000 presidential election.
He co-founded The American Conservative magazine and launched a foundation named The American Cause. He has been published in Human Events, National Review, The Nation and Rolling Stone. He was a political commentator on the MSNBC cable network, including the show Morning Joe until he was indefinitely suspended during early January 2012 and fired the following month. Buchanan is also a regular on The McLaughlin Group.
Buchanan was born in Washington, D.C., a son of William Baldwin Buchanan (Virginia, August 13, 1905 – Washington, D.C., January 1988), a partner in an accounting firm, and his wife Catherine Elizabeth (Crum) Buchanan (Charleroi, Washington County, Pennsylvania, December 23, 1911 – Oakton, Fairfax County, Virginia, September 18, 1995), a nurse and a homemaker. Buchanan had six brothers (Brian, Henry, James, John, Thomas, and William Jr.) and two sisters (Kathleen Theresa and Angela Marie, nicknamed Bay). Bay served as U.S. Treasurer under Ronald Reagan. His father was of Scottish, English, and Irish descent and his mother was of German ancestry. He had a great-grandfather who fought in the American Civil War in the Confederate Army. He is a member of the Sons of Confederate Veterans and admires Robert E. Lee. Of his southern roots, Buchanan has written: