Fox News Lands Rare (But Not Really) Limbaugh Interview

Between reports on Hollywood's Best Abs, celebrities having fun with facial hair, and designer salt, Foxnews.com found some space to post Chris Wallace's interview with Rush Limbaugh. (Oh, did you know it's Maxim Monday?!)

In the interview, which aired on Fox News Sunday, Wallace and Limbaugh wore matching outfits of blue blazers and partially unbuttoned shirts. (Limbaugh went with preppy loafers sans socks—so much for coordination, fellas!) The two met in Palm Beach for what Wallace described as "a rare interview."

That little bit of hyperbole should've been a tip-off that what was to follow in the 25-minute Limbaugh interview would be—how to put this?—a steaming pile of hokum.

Far from being a difficult "get," Limbaugh was interviewed at length by Jamie Gangel for NBC's Today Show in October. Fox News' Greta Van Susteren also sat down with him in July. Sean Hannity, also of Fox News, interviewed Limbaugh in January. And let's not forget Rush talking to Zev Chafets for a New York Times Magazine cover story last year.

Rare interview? Hardly.

The real question, though, is why Fox News gave Limbaugh a half hour of its Sunday programming and treated the interview as anything other than a standard talking-head segment. With its gentle lighting, strategically placed floral arrangement, and tasteful use of decorative seashells, Fox News treated Rush more like a beloved visiting statesman than what he is: a supremely successful opinion-monger. (Did seeing all those conch shells in proximity to Rush remind anyone else of a certain character from a well-known children's novel?)

Limbaugh hardly lacks for a platform: He appears five days a week for three hours a day on 600 radio stations, reaching 20 million "dittoheads" nationwide. In 2008, he signed a $400 million deal with Premiere Radio Networks, a division of Clear Channel. That deal reportedly came with a $100 million signing bonus.

Limbaugh suggested to Wallace he's probably worth more than that. ("I'm not complaining. Do not misunderstand," he clarified.) He also took credit for the rise of Conservative media—including, probably to his host's chagrin, Fox News—saying, "In one way, if I wanted to... have my ego be as big as [Barack] Obama's is, I'd say, 'Look what I created!'"

The host, who describes himself as having "talent on loan from God," was too modest to go that far.

That Clear Channel deal will keep Limbaugh on air through 2016 so that he can continue to rail against Obama, whom he described as a "radical" with "the maturity of a child" well into the President's second term in office.

Then again, if Limbaugh has his way, he may be winding down his radio contract near the end of the first term of a politician Limbaugh says he has "profound respect for": President Sarah Palin.

How's that for a post-Halloween scare?