Cabs lined up with engines idling outside Washington's historic
Omni Shoreham Hotel about 5 p.m. Saturday afternoon. Drivers were
waiting to sweep away thousands of guests who soon would depart
the Conservative Political Action
Conference (CPAC), but nobody was leaving yet, and so the
drivers waited.
"When does Rush speak?" asked a stocky driver in a blue hooded
sweatshirt.
"He just started speaking," I answered.
"Oh, man, I wish I could be there," the driver said. "He is
great."
Wally Onakoya drives Fairway
Cab No. 1 and said he had hoped to listen to
Rush Limbaugh's speech on WCSP-FM, but was disappointed that
Washington's C-SPAN radio station was not broadcasting it live.
He came to America from Nigeria in 1983. A quarter-century later,
he now drives his cab in the nation's capital to pay tuition for
his daughter, Seun, a freshman biochemistry major at Maryland's
St. Mary's College, whose school emblem adorned the blue hoodie
Onakoya wore Saturday with paternal pride.
Onakoya has been a loyal Dittohead for years. He explained that
not all who ride in his cab appreciate his radio habit of
listening to Limbaugh from noon to 3 p.m. weekdays.
"Some people say he is the second coming of the devil," Onakoya
said with a deep baritone chuckle.
The driver of Fairway No. 1 said he had often been told such
things, but began tuning in regularly after seeing billboard
advertisements for Limbaugh's broadcast on WMAL-AM.
"I see the sign and I say, 'I will listen to him.' Since that
day, I never change my station.…He is a man, you know,"
Onakoya said with emphasis. "He is not all wishy-washy."
Onakoya again expressed the wish that he could hear Limbaugh's
speech, but the hotel's Regency Ballroom was packed to fire-code
capacity, and CPAC attendees also filled two additional ballrooms
to watch the speech on closed-circuit TV. Others gathered for the
final day of the annual conference were watching on plasma
screens in the hotel corridors, in the basement exhibition hall,
and in the lobby bar, which was unusually quiet for the occasion.
Yet while thousands at CPAC and millions coast-to-coast watched
what Rush called his "first address to the nation," the Dittohead
cabbie was missing out.
"Come on," I told Onakoya. "I know where you can watch it."
I stubbed out my cigarette, and the driver of Fairway No. 1
followed me through a side door of the hotel into a private
hospitality suite hosted by Victory Solutions, a
rapidly growing political technology firm. I'd met the company's
president, Shannon Burns, while
covering last month's RNC meeting, and had gladly acted on
his encouragement to bring fellow journalists to enjoy the
hospitality suite's amenities during the conference.
The crowd gathered inside the Victory Solutions suite Saturday
was watching Limbaugh's speech in respectful silence, and no one
noticed as Onakoya and I entered quietly through the side door
and stood near the back of the room.
"For those of you just tuning in on Fox News or C-SPAN," the man
on the big-screen TV was saying, "I am Rush Limbaugh, and I want
everyone in this room, and every one of you around the country,
to succeed. I want anyone who believes in life, liberty and the
pursuit of happiness to succeed.…The American people may not all
vote as we would wish them to, but more Americans live their
lives as conservatives in one degree or another. They are waiting
for leadership."
Limbaugh continued speaking, while I went to grab two ice-cold
bottled waters and returned to hand one to Onakoya.
"How did the United States of America become the world's lone
superpower, the world's economic engine, the most prosperous
opportunity for an advanced lifestyle that humanity has ever
known? How did this happen? And why, pray tell, does the
president of the United States want to destroy it? It saddens
me.…
"President Obama is so busy trying to foment and create
anger in a created atmosphere of crisis, he's so busy fueling the
emotions of class envy that he's forgotten it's not his money
he's spending. In fact, the money he's spending is not ours. He
is spending wealth that has yet to be created, and that is not
sustainable. It will not work."
(Rush Limbaugh is said to be an avid American Spectator
reader, but perhaps this is merely further
proof that great minds think alike.)
Onakoya applauded along with many others, both in the hospitality
suite and in the ballroom, as Rush paid tribute to the greatness
of America and her people. And he listened as Limbaugh discussed,
with tremendous passion, the human wreckage created by decades of
liberal policy and the message of victimhood that Democrats
convey to the poor.
"It breaks our heart to see this," Rush said. "We can't have a
great country and a growing economy, with more and more people
being told…that they have a right to the earnings of others."
From the corner of my eye, through the window, I saw the cab at
the head of the queue in front of the Omni Shoreham roll forward
to pick up a fare. I nudged Onakoya to indicate that his services
were needed outside as the taxi herd was slowly rearranged.
"Thank you so much," the cabbie told me, after we'd pushed
through the door and were strolling back toward the driveway. I
assured Onakoya that the pleasure was entirely mine, and that it
was he who deserved gratitude, not I.
Today at 12:06 p.m., while Fairway Cab No. 1 rolls through the
streets of Washington, the taxi's radio will carry the voice of a
man who cares more for the opinion of cab drivers than for the
praise of elitists. Rush looks at this country's Wally Onakoyas
and sees like-minded souls engaged with him in the "relentless
pursuit of excellence."
Why do the liberal elitists insist we should see such proudly
independent Americans as something else, or something less?
