We thought you’d be especially interested in two articles in the new issue of Vanity Fair. Both can be read now at http://www.vanityfair.com/
 
Vanity Fair contributing editor Michael Wolff reports that during a wide-ranging discussion with Rush Limbaugh’s mentor, Lee Vanden-Handel, the recently retired radio guru who helped discover Limbaugh in the late ’80s in Sacramento, politics were never mentioned. “Rush,” Vanden-Handel tells Wolff, echoing R.N.C. chairman Michael Steele, “is an entertainer. A consummate professional. He knows his audience. He stays with it, and it has stayed with him. That’s not politics. That’s … well … good business.” Elsewhere in his article, “The Man Who Ate the G.O.P.,” Wolff confronts the dirty little secret of conservative talk radio—the average age of listeners is 67 and rising—and quotes a moderate Republican friend of his, who uses words like “nuttiness” when asked about Limbaugh, saying “the man has no behavioral regulators.” According to Wolff, “a kinder, gentler Republican consensus would be much worse for the Rush brand and business model than even an F.D.R.-type era of Democratic dominance.”