Here's the nine-page article (remarkably balanced) -
Michael Harrison, the editor and publisher of Talkers magazine, a trade
publication, puts Limbaugh’s weekly audience at 14 million. Limbaugh
himself says it is closer to 20 million. Either way, nobody else is
close. He has been the top-rated radio talk-show host in America since
the magazine started the ranking 17 years ago. Such
massive and consistent popularity makes Limbaugh a singular political
force. “Rush has completely remade American politics by offering an
alternative to the networks and CNN,” Rove told me. . . Harrison offered an even
more grandiose view: “He’s a phenomenon like the Beatles. Before Rush
Limbaugh there was nothing like talk radio. He’s been to talk what
Elvis was to rock ’n’ roll. He saved the AM dial.”
Read the article and learn about Limbaugh's $450,000 car, a house of 24,000 square feet, a two-story library (a scaled-down version of the library at the Biltmore Estate in North Carolina), and a Gulfstream G550 airplane costing $54 million, Here's another item:
But Limbaugh’s real hero and constant role model is Ronald Reagan.
Limbaugh admires many aspects of Reaganism, but he is especially animated by his belief in American exceptionalism. “Reagan rejected the notion among liberals and conservatives alike who, for different reasons, believed America was in a permanent state of decline,” he wrote to me in an e-mail message. “He had faith in the wisdom of the American people. . . . He knew America wasn’t perfect, but he also knew it was the most perfect of nations. Reagan was an advocate of Americanism.” In response to a separate question, he wrote: “America is the solution to the world’s problems. We are not the problem.”
[more. . . ] Update 7/7/08 - Victor Davis Hanson on "the Limbaugh appeal": "...the attraction comes not just from the political commentary per se, but
from the catharsis he offers to the weary who are exhausted after
hearing from government, the media, the universities, and the
politicians 24/7 that they and their ancestors have been greedy,
racist, sexist, homophobic, polluters, destroyers of wildlife,
destructive to the planet and unsophisticated. Limbaugh says to them
all “Hey, relax, the problem is not you, but those calling you all
those names” — and then has fun proving his point."