Please, Don't Exit the Reticule

"He sends me the loveliest e-mails," claims Elton John in USAToday. "What I get from Rush privately and what I get from Rush publicly are two different things. I'm just trying to break him down."

This should be no surprise to anyone listening to Rush Limbaugh for more than a few minutes. Limbaugh's enthusiastic lectures espouse self-confidence and independence of government — the radio host spends very little on-air capital talking social mores. His biography shows jet-set freewheeling.

And yet the article suggests an unlikely acquaintance. After twenty years, shouldn't most people know the difference between, say, Rush Limbaugh and Bill Bennett? Or because the two men share faintly similar profiles — conservative 60-somethings, though one's a bon vivant while the other's kindly and genteel — are they both stereotyped as Neanderthal scolds?

«     »