As Reagan biographer Richard Reeves wrote, "Reagan and [Vice President George H.W.] Bush had had lunch most weeks, eating Mexican food, telling dirty jokes, and talking sports most of the time." In his anti-Reagan book Sleepwalking Through History, former Washington Post columnist Haynes Johnson writes that among "his vast repertoire of stories were innumerable raunchy ones that he told with pleasure and at great length." In Dutch, Edward Morris relates that Reagan used to tell rude jokes—"gross stuff"—in front of women.

But, as Michael concedes, there is a big difference between private jokes and public broadcasts. Show me a broadcast or public statement where Reagan even approached the Limbaugh style.