Rush Limbaugh...5 homes in Palm Beach, 6 cars about half a million each.

[madfloridian]

Must be profitable being him. Interesting.

From an article in the New York Times, June of last year.

Late period Limbaugh

“ANTICIPATING A QUESTION,” Limbaugh said when we pulled into the garage of his secluded beachfront mansion in Palm Beach, “why do I have so many cars?”

I hadn’t actually been wondering that. Very rich people tend not to stint on transportation. For example, we drove to the house from the studio, Limbaugh at the wheel, in a black Maybach 57S, which runs around $450,000 fully loaded. He had half a dozen similar rides on his estate.

“I have these cars for two reasons,” Limbaugh said. “First, they are for the use of my guests. And two, I happen to love fine automobiles.”

He also loves space. There are five homes — all of them his — on the property. The big house is 24,000 square feet. Limbaugh lives there with a cat. He’s been married three times but has no children.

Limbaugh informed me that I was the first journalist ever to enter his home. Mary Matalin, the Republican consultant, calls the place “aspirational,” which is one adjective that fits. The place, largely designed by Limbaugh himself, reflects the things and places he has seen and admired. The massive chandelier in the dining room, for example, is a replica of the one that hung in the lobby of the Plaza Hotel in New York. The gleaming cherry-wood floors are dotted with hand-woven oriental carpets. A life-size oil portrait of El Rushbo, as he often calls himself on the air, hangs on the wall of the main staircase.

I was concerned about Mary Matalin overhearing conversations by her hubby and his buddies which included the new Chief of Staff, Rahm Emanuel.

Here is one reason, among many others...her proximity to Rush Limbaugh.

EVERY APRIL, LIMBAUGH HOSTS A WEEKEND at his Palm Beach estate for his closest friends. This year the guest list included Roger Ailes, Mary Matalin and Joel Surnow, a creator of the television series “24” and a leader of the small Hollywood conservative community. The event is social but hardly nonpolitical.

Anyone looking for an informal gathering of the Vast Right Wing Conspiracy could do worse than this. Limbaugh is also close to Karl Rove, who dined with him a few weeks earlier in Florida; Justice Antonin Scalia (last year he attended a dinner at cousin Steve Limbaugh’s Cape Girardeau home); and Justice Clarence Thomas (who officiated at Limbaugh’s third wedding). He describes his fellow Floridian Matt Drudge as a buddy. George H. W. Bush invited Limbaugh to sleep in the Lincoln Bedroom.

It's as though all Limbaugh's drug problems are long forgotten.

He appears to be back in fine form with his power to make Republican congressman be careful what they say....and apologize if they say the wrong thing. So in case you start thinking that the right wing folks are not as supportive of Limbaugh after 8 long years of the failure of the policies he espouses.....well, remember Gingrey.

Gingrey grovels

But when the congressman for Georgia’s 11th district sounded off this week about Rush Limbaugh - saying it was easy for him “to stand back and throw bricks” while elected officials provide leadership - Gingrey had little inkling of the uproar his remarks would create.

Within hours of criticizing the popular right-wing talker, the GOP lawmaker’s offices were bombarded with phone calls and e-mails from outraged constituents and Limbaugh devotees known as “dittoheads.” By the next morning, a humbled Gingrey was phoning in to Limbaugh’s show to apologize.

“I just wanted to tell you, Rush - and all our conservative giants, who help us so much to maintain our base and grow it to get back this majority - that I regret those stupid comments,” he said.

Gingrey’s grovelling mea culpa is being heralded as evidence to support two emerging views of the conservative movement in post-George W. Bush era - that there’s a Republican leadership vacuum in Washington, and that Limbaugh, the great tormentor of liberals everywhere, is stepping in once again to fill the void.

In my mind the worst thing he has ever done is to excuse and glorify torture. Media Matters covered his remarks.

Limbaugh on Abu Ghraib

As reported by Wonkette.com, Limbaugh's comments can be found on his website. From the May 4 Rush Limbaugh Show, titled "It's Not About Us; This Is War!":

CALLER: It was like a college fraternity prank that stacked up naked men --

LIMBAUGH: Exactly. Exactly my point! This is no different than what happens at the Skull and Bones initiation and we're going to ruin people's lives over it and we're going to hamper our military effort, and then we are going to really hammer them because they had a good time. You know, these people are being fired at every day. I'm talking about people having a good time, these people, you ever heard of emotional release? You ever heard of need to blow some steam off?

The day before, on his May 3 show, Limbaugh observed that the American troops who mistreated Iraqi prisoners of war were "babes" and that the pictures of the alleged abuse were no worse than "anything you'd see Madonna, or Britney Spears do on stage."

LIMBAUGH: And these American prisoners of war -- have you people noticed who the torturers are? Women! The babes! The babes are meting out the torture.

In 2000 during the recount a relative called us from another state...he started out with these words: "Can't you idiots in Florida get it right?"

I later learned that was one of the talking points used by Rush Limbaugh.