Playboy Interview: Rush Limbaugh

For three hours every weekday afternoon, the voice of Rush Limbaugh, like an ion-charged electrical storm, rains bombast on America. He is our new weather, and there is no relief in sight: At last count more than 600 radio transmitters were flooding the airwaves with Limbaugh. No broadcast persona has so dominated public discourse since Walter Winchell—and Winchell had only 15 minutes per week, not 15 hours. If that weren't enough, something called the Rush Room has been instituted across the country, a place where workmen and housewives and everyday Joes gather to absorb Limbaugh over lunch. More than 15 million people listen to him each week as he rails against everything from rap music to feminism to the president's hair. A voice that pervasive should come with its own environmental-impact statement.

All that begs the inevitable question: Who—or what—is Rush Limbaugh? Is he a right-wing icon wearing his best leather attitude? Is he a latter-day seer, here to warn of the impending doom to be heaped upon us by the Democratic administration? Or is he just another loudmouth clown who has managed to overstay his 15 minutes of fame?

None of the above. Rush Limbaugh is a passionate, glib, conservative radio and TV talk-show host. William F. Buckley without the thesaurus. Pat Buchanan without the meanspiritedness. Ross Perot without the paranoia. He is a man who can fetch laughter, work brain cells and infuriate people—simultaneously. It is a talent he has perfected virtually solo: His TV show features just him, a few video clips and the occasional viewer call-in; he uses no script or Tele-prompter. And to date, he has had only a handful of guests on his programs—most notably George Bush, who, with hat in hand late in the 1992 presidential campaign, joined Rush at the microphone for a last-minute appeal to voters.

While American conservatism has had its fair share of mouthpieces since the Reagan era, few have had Limbaugh's style—a canny combination of politics, show business and "Mad" magazine. He is an aggressor whose prime objective is to seize control of the language. Thus, the NAACP, according to Limbaugh, has become NAALCP—a "National Association for the Advancement of Liberal Colored People." Certain feminists (in particular, those who vigorously advocate abortion rights) are "feminazis." Accuse him of callousness toward street people and you're just showing your "compassion fascism." Ecology? Limbaugh addresses that hot-button issue with a regular Environmental Update segment on his programs, the background music for which is a kind of pop concerto featuring chain saw and bulldozer. (The average tree, he surmises, is useful only after it has been tapped for wainscotting and fungo bats.)

In the wake of his fervor, Limbaugh leaves many listeners speechless—incredulous, really—that he actually gets away with talking the way he does. Because he hurls his commentary at America, as cruel or crude as that commentary can be, more often as satire than as politics, even his detractors sometimes begrudgingly cut him the same slack they give "Saturday Night Live." Limbaugh knows this: Time and again he has categorized himself not as a social critic but as an entertainer. Naturally, that gives him undiplomatic immunity.

Once a bit player in the world of talk radio, Limbaugh has climbed from relative obscurity to national prominence in the past two years. It was during the 1992 presidential campaign that he finally burst forth, weighing in on election-time ideology with his no-prisoners disposition. Since then, the numbers continue to impress. To wit:

Yet, despite the numbers, critics (and there are many) continue to be dubious. Rush Limbaugh, they charge, is converting no one with his on-air ranting. He has simply stepped in as ventriloquist for the nation's right-wing subculture—a leaderless faction still smarting from the Republican loss in 1992. America would be just as conservative, the skeptics continue, without Limbaugh's gangland-style rhetoric—maybe just not as loud. And after all, they say, he is just a fad.

According to Limbaugh, the latter could not be further from the truth. By 1996, he says, his radio show will have more than 20 million listeners across the country, easily enough to influence a Republican presidential primary or two. Ironically, even as Limbaugh eviscerates the current Democratic administration, he continues to withhold endorsements for potential successors to the conservative crown, such as Perot, Jack Kemp or Robert Dole. Instead, he seems comfortable filling the vacuum atop the conservative movement himself.

No surprise there. Those who follow Limbaugh know that humility is not his strong suit. His talent, he insists, is "on loan from God"; and while his political point of view isn't necessarily "that of this radio station," he is quick to add: "It should be." In response to the equal-time requirements for decent political discourse, Limbaugh is just as blunt. "I am equal time!" he'll bellow—then back off with the finesse of a bullfighter, purring, "I'm just a harmless little fuzzball."

Well, hardly little. Limbaugh stands six feet tall and weighs 280 pounds. It is in part because of his formidable size that some tend to forgive his rhetorical excesses. Yet his own commentary about his weight is just one example of the way Limbaugh can be surprisingly self-effacing. In fact, despite his blowhard conceit, he is harder on himself than anyone else. He will complain about his appearance, his sweat, his two collapsed marriages, his loneliness—an attack on his self-image that is a near-preposterous mélange of arrogance and modesty.

Born 42 years ago in Cape Girardeau, Missouri, Rush Hudson Limbaugh III grew up in an upper-middle-class family surrounded by power players—lawyers and bankers filled the family tree. But Rush majored in failure as a young man: college dropout, fired from a string of radio DJ jobs, earning next to nothing as a sales executive for the Kansas City Royals baseball team. If less is more, a critic once noted, then Limbaugh was loaded.

The break came nine years ago when Limbaugh landed a job at KFBK radio station in Sacramento, replacing then-host Morton Downey, Jr. There he was allowed to indulge in his solo agitprop shtick. Ratings skyrocketed, and in 1988 media gambler Ed McLaughlin persuaded Limbaugh to abandon his guaranteed $70,000-per-year salary and go daytime national from New York. "On August 1," Limbaugh wrote of that time, "the Excellence in Broadcasting Network premiered with its 56 radio stations and a total audience of 250,000." Today, the network's audience is larger than the population of New England, and Limbaugh's yearly earnings have reached $5 million.

Can the Limbaugh phenomenon stay alive? Can the man behind the myth behind the mike survive the four slow years between elections? To find the answers to these questions and more, Playboy asked Contributing Editor, novelist and former "National Review" columnist D. Keith Mano to meet with Limbaugh on his New York turf. Mano reports:

"I met Limbaugh, quite by chance, at a party just three days after Playboy assigned me the interview. To my surprise, he was more than receptive to the idea of appearing in the 'Entertainment for Men' magazine. After all, he said, he was on this planet to save liberal sinners—and, according to Rush, Playboy is proprietor of the most current and inclusive subscription list of unregenerate left-wing folk in America.

"Limbaugh is a self-confessed obsessive-compulsive. He autographs each copy of his book presented to him by his 75-member TV-show audience (for the record, his signature is huge). He does not blanch at spending money, either, particularly up to $90,000 a year on limousines (he says he hates walking and can't negotiate subway stairs). But that same compulsiveness translates into a nearly unmatchable work ethic, making him a gracious, articulate subject.

"We met three times, twice in a small office at the Unitel TV studio in Manhattan. At the first session Limbaugh was tired. His schedule, starting at five A.M., included appearing on a CBS morning news show, reading his customary seven or eight newspapers, doing his three-hour radio show and sitting before the cameras for two TV-show tapings. Still, he never ducked a question—and his second wind came quickly. It was only in our third session, at the radio studio, that Limbaugh became testy, complaining that he'd already given Playboy enough of his time.

"When Limbaugh announced on his TV and radio programs that he would be sitting for the 'Playboy Interview,' he was met with an angry outcry from his minions—the great dittohead masses—who were offended that their hero would subsequently turn up in the company of nude and nubile women. It was on this inflammatory subject that we began our conversation."

[Q] Playboy: We finally got you here. How do your fans feel about Rush Limbaugh appearing in Playboy?

[A] Limbaugh: When I announced on my award-winning program today that I was going to do the Playboy Interview, I knew I would be inundated with responses from those in my audience who think Playboy is pornographic—who would say to me, "You, because of your popularity and the curiosity about you, are going to see to it single-handedly that people who otherwise wouldn't buy that smut will."

[Q] Playboy: We hope so.

[A] Limbaugh: Then they'd say, "So why are you doing it? Don't you know that they're using you?"

[Q] Playboy: Why are you doing it?

[A] Limbaugh: I've decided to do this interview for two reasons: First, men and women of great stature have done the Playboy Interview. It is a forum that has been accepted as a legitimate place for the dissemination of all points of view.

The second reason is: I can think of no better place to have views such as mine—which are the epitome of morality and virtue—published than in a magazine such as Playboy. It is as that great man Jesus Christ said: "You go to where the sinners are." So here I am, in the pages of Playboy, attempting in what meager way I can to clean it up.

[Q] Playboy: We don't consider Playboy to be pornographic. Do you?

[A] Limbaugh: There's a distinction between soft-core and hard-core porn. I would say Playboy is soft-core.

[Q] Playboy: At a recent gathering of the National Organization for Women, there was a heavy debate on the issue of pornography. As you know, its members are split down the middle on the issue. Some considered——

[A] Limbaugh: A hell of a place for the National Organization for Women to be split.

[Q] Playboy: Half were strongly in favor of banning pornography because they feel it demeans women. The other half disagreed, citing the free-market approach.

[A] Limbaugh: Using the choice umbrella.

[Q] Playboy: Exactly. Do you feel pornography is demeaning to women?

[A] Limbaugh: Absolutely. It's demeaning to the women who participate in it, and it's demeaning to women in general. I don't think there's any debate about it.

[Q] Playboy: What about the works of [photographer] Robert Mapplethorpe and [artist] Andres Serrano? Their controversial art has been called pornographic. It's even led conservatives to suggest that the National Endowment for the Arts be disbanded. If you had the power to do that, would you?

[A] Limbaugh: Yes, I would disband the NEA, especially given the current budget situation. I have a simple definition of art: If I can do it, it isn't art. OK? I mean, if there have been declining standards anywhere, it's in art. It's similar to what's happened to the concept of freedom. Freedom is: "Anything I want to do—and don't you dare say otherwise or you're getting in the way of my good time. You're a bigot. You're a sexist. You're a homophobe." But for crying out loud, take a trip to Rome, go to St. Peter's and look at the obviously great works of art there—then come back to the U.S. and be treated to [the Serrano art piece] Piss Christ and then be told you must respect this as art and, furthermore, that you must pay for it. Now, whether you would call the elimination of funding for that kind of stuff censorship, I don't know. But I think it's a total waste of money.

[Q] Playboy: What about personalities such as Howard Stern. Do you consider him to be pornographic?

[A] Limbaugh: Who?

[Q] Playboy: Howard Stern. The radio host.

[A] Limbaugh: I only know what people tell me about Howard Stern, which isn't much. Honestly, I do not listen to other radio shows.

[Q] Playboy: Really?

[A] Limbaugh: I don't. I never have. I don't want to get ideas from anybody else about how to do something. So I don't know from firsthand experience if Howard Stern is pornographic.

[Q] Playboy: Would you go to an X-rated movie?

[A] Limbaugh: No. I mean, I have seen one in my life.

[Q] Playboy: You have?

[A] Limbaugh: Yeah. I have made one major departure into smut.

[Q] Playboy: How old were you at the time?

[A] Limbaugh: I had to be 28 or 29. I saw this X-rated movie at the home of a major-league baseball player who shall remain nameless.

[Q] Playboy: Let's step back from this a bit. Despite your following, some people look at you as just a phenomenon.

[A] Limbaugh: Ah, that's exactly right. Less than a phenomenon—a fad. They don't take me seriously. "This guy is going to burn out—he's not going to make it." I love that. Well, let those guys continue to take me less than seriously and I'll continue to do end runs around them.

[Q] Playboy: There are also those who just laugh and say, "Oh, look. Isn't Rush Limbaugh funny?"

[A] Limbaugh: Yeah. Imagine that. A funny conservative. Isn't that a novelty? What a great circus America has become.

[Q] Playboy: With all this debate about your impact, are you still having fun?

[A] Limbaugh: Yeah, it hasn't stopped being fun. I couldn't do all that I do if it weren't fun. And if it ever stops, that's when I will seriously consider bringing it to a close.

[Q] Playboy: Yet along with that success has come a certain amount of power. What was it like to have George Bush make a penitential trip to your microphone during his 1992 presidential bid? What were you thinking? A little late, George, or something like that?

[A] Limbaugh: No. Gee, I hope these answers don't bore you. My only concern at the time—as it is every day—was doing the best job I could. I get up every day thinking I have to prove myself. You mentioned power, which I suppose indicates curiosity about my self-perception. I could probably get anybody on the phone I wanted. And I could probably get anybody to go to lunch with me one time, or have a drink. But I don't call anybody. I wait to hear from them.

[Q] Playboy: Could you call the White House?

[A] Limbaugh: I could call the White House, I could call ... whomever—name a person. And I don't just mean Helmut Kohl or somebody like that. I don't think of things that way. I guess the short answer is: None of this has hit me the way people think it has.

[Q] Playboy: For all your bellyaching about the new administration, are you secretly pleased by Clinton's election—not only for the entertainment value but also because you can now be the loyal opposition instead of just flacking for a Republican president you weren't all that interested in before?

[A] Limbaugh: There is no question that it's much easier with a clearly established opponent in a position of power, as opposed to someone who is not an opponent. But I'll tell you this: When I was doing my newsletter or the TV or radio shows during the campaign, I was not hoping for a Clinton victory. I didn't think he'd be good for the country, and I don't think he is good for the country. If Bill Clinton gets even a portion of what he wants, he's going to do real damage to the people who make this country work—the middle class. I can sit back in reflection and say that it's probably a better programming opportunity for me. But I wrote The Way Things Ought to Be, a New York Times best-seller—33 weeks at the time we tape this interview—and in one chapter it says: "My success is not determined by who wins elections." I'm probably more honest about that than people who claim to be objective journalists. They like to make the news for ego or ideology. I don't. I'm not at all caught up in whatever influence or power I might have. I've simply carved my niche. I love very much what I do.

[Q] Playboy: You suggest that Clinton is dangerous, yet on Meet the Press you said, "Our time in history will be known as the Clinton–Bush era."

[A] Limbaugh: Right.

[Q] Playboy: That would indicate that you don't find much difference between the candidates. Tell us how George Bush and Bill Clinton differ.

[A] Limbaugh: I think about the 1990 budget deal over which President Bush presided. Its inherent tax increases—when the nation was just beginning a recession—deepened the recession. The violation of his "read my lips" promise contributed to a deflating national attitude and to anger. But what Bill Clinton is doing goes far beyond policy. Rather than being a new Democrat, Bill Clinton is the worst of the old Democrats. I mean, he's right out of the F.D.R. mold. He has successfully exploited fraud and lies and class envy to catapult himself to the presidency. He does something that George Bush would never have done, and that is blame the achievers.

[Q] Playboy: Explain that.

[A] Limbaugh: The people who benefited in the Eighties are the people who worked—and they did really well. But Bill Clinton tells the middle and lower classes in this country, "Those people benefited unfairly. Furthermore, they got money that was targeted for you." In essence, he's saying, "They stole it from you." Well, that creates class envy, and Bill Clinton exploits it. He convinces people that the government is their only hope for prosperity. And I think we need an exact turnaround. I think people need to be told that if they just invest in themselves—in rugged individualism and excellence instead of sameness and equality—then who knows what they can be? In fact, liberals say most people are incapable of educating themselves sufficiently and making proper judgments and decisions. It is a cradle-to-grave paternalism that says: "You can't make it without the government's help." And: "We'll make sure that somebody doesn't do better than you, doesn't learn more than you do." All of this is done under the guise of fairness and equality, and I think that is extremely damaging. None of that would have happened with Bush.

[Q] Playboy: And yet the American people seem to accept the idea that the Reagan Eighties were a decade of greed in which only illusory gains were made.

[A] Limbaugh: The architects of that revisionism are the people whose power is most threatened by the truth: the liberals. Liberals are empowered by making as many Americans dependent on them as possible. And yet the Eighties proved we don't need liberals. We don't need cradle-to-grave. All we need are fewer restrictions, fewer shackles and more positive attitudes: "You can do it. This is America." Turn people loose and let them become the best they can be.

[Q] Playboy: That still doesn't explain the economic imbalance of the Eighties.

[A] Limbaugh: OK. Let's look at the Eighties. When Reagan took office in 1981, the top marginal tax rate was 70 percent, and the total take to the Treasury was a little more than $500 billion. When Reagan left office, the top marginal tax rate was 28 percent—31 percent if you calculate that three percent bubble—and the total take to the Treasury was just less than $1 trillion. Revenues almost doubled with marginal income-tax rates lowered. Democrats will admit this. They will admit that the rich are paying more taxes than ever. But then they'll say it's still unfair because their rate is lower. Liberals talk tax rates and equate that to fairness. Conservatives, such as me, talk generating revenue, expanding economies. Now look at the deficit in the last three years of the Eighties. It ran $150 billion—down from earlier deficits in excess of $200 billion. No tax increases had come along to reduce that deficit to $150 billion. What was going on—depending on whom you listen to—was that 19 million to 23 million new jobs were created in the Eighties. Substantive new jobs. Career-type jobs, not hamburger-flipper jobs, as is often stated. And the national attitude was way up. Reagan made people feel good about themselves, which is a crucial aspect of leadership. And it was also a time in which the military was rebuilt, so there was a lot of positive reinforcement. People were proud to be Americans. And to try to revise those years—and to get away with it—is unfortunate. It's criminal.

[Q] Playboy: Why does the Republican Party seem so inept at taking advantage of any opportunities it might be given?

[A] Limbaugh: That's part and parcel of being a minority party. You adopt a defensive posture. You react. Republicans became much better at looking at what Democrats were doing and then knocking on the door and saying, "Hey, let us in. We can do a better job."

[Q] Playboy: And once they got in?

[A] Limbaugh: Once they got in they said: "Oh, God, what do we do now?" After eight years of Reagan, there isn't a whole lot to show for it other than the judiciary. Then you elect Clinton—and a Democratic majority in the Senate and in the House—and everyone feels, "That's it. The Republicans are over, fini, sayonara." But all of a sudden, the Republicans are saying: "Hey, hey, hey. We can do this." They are empowered. They're feeling strength. They are feeling positive.

[Q] Playboy: They're staying on the offense.

[A] Limbaugh: Right. And I think staying on offense is the best thing to do, especially if you have your principles, your ethics and your morality guiding you. And the Republicans are doing that now. They're adopting the attitude that the wagon train keeps moving. And, as we tape this, I'm pumped by the confidence and the empowerment that they feel.

[Q] Playboy: You're much more eloquent about this than most Republican politicians. Why is that?

[A] Limbaugh: The reason I stand out in articulating my principles is that I don't feel defensive about what I believe. I also don't feel that I'm in a minority. I believe a vast majority of the people in this country are conservative, at least in the way they live their lives and want their children to turn out. But liberalism sounds good. Socialism sounds good. Economically it's tough, but politically, boy, it sounds so good. And conservatism's hard. With conservatism, you have to take care of yourself. Yet conservatism is the secret to life, it's the secret to happiness, the secret to prosperity. You're in charge—you have the freedom to be yourself.

I have not wavered from my core beliefs or principles at any time, even when I was told that if I didn't get on the Perot bandwagon I would lose my audience because they were going to go to Perot. I was told I should lead the Perot charge. I didn't, and audience growth was just phenomenal during that period.

[Q] Playboy: Fill our readers in on the million-dollar bet you made.

[A] Limbaugh: Ah, yes. Well, I thought this was a typical stroke of genius. I have earned, by virtue of hard work, a significant amount of money. So after I first heard the Clinton economic plan, I said: "I'll put my money where my mouth is. I'll bet the Democratic National Committee that after this economic plan has been implemented—if it is, by 1995 or 1996, you take your pick—unemployment will be higher than the day the plan was passed, the inflation rate will be higher than the day the plan was passed, and the deficit and interest rates will be higher, too. And Bill Clinton's approval rating will be at 45 and falling." And I said, "You guys give me three of these five. If I win, I get to donate your million dollars to a charity of my choice, and if you win, you get to take my million and donate it to a charity of your choice— other than yourselves." They didn't take the bet, and they're not going to.

[Q] Playboy: Why not?

[A] Limbaugh: They know this plan won't work. But they don't have the guts to say so—not the people in the Democratic National Committee or anybody else.

[Q] Playboy: Why not?

[A] Limbaugh: Because they have to be loyal to Bill Clinton.

[Q] Playboy: Let's look ahead to 1996. By then the Republican Party is going to come in with people who will be vying actively for your endorsement, or at least your sympathy. You may actually cause more of a split in the Republican Party because there will be the Limbaugh Republicans and the moderate Republicans. How do you feel about that?

[A] Limbaugh:[Laughs] I know what you mean and I'm fascinated.

[Q] Playboy: What will you do at that point?

[A] Limbaugh: My policy is: I don't involve myself in primaries. After the party and the people have chosen the candidate, then it's a different ball game.

[Q] Playboy: But won't you feel responsible? After all, you can bring in perhaps 10 million votes. A swing vote of that size could win a presidential nomination.

[A] Limbaugh: I think it's going to be more like 20 million by 1996.

[Q] Playboy: Votes you can control?

[A] Limbaugh: Yeah, if I choose to.

[Q] Playboy: Isn't it a grave responsibility?

[A] Limbaugh: If I choose to accept that responsibility, it is.

[Q] Playboy: But how could you not endorse a candidate during the primaries? Put it this way: For argument's sake, say Bob Dole runs, and you know he will capitulate on any tax program down the line. Are you going to tell your listeners that? Sure you are. So Dole will be put in the position of running against Rush Limbaugh, not Jack Kemp or Bill Bennett or Pete DuPont or whomever.

[A] Limbaugh: Well, who knows what Bob Dole's going to learn? It's a long time till 1996, and I won't be put on the hot spot. Don't print that Bob Dole is unilaterally or automatically going to be someone that I tell everyone not to trust. You know, Dole was relevant and fundamental in the opposition to Clinton's stimulus package. And we have to wait and see whether he learns from that or is simply playing politics.

[Q] Playboy: Let's back up. Who have been your conservative mentors?

[A] Limbaugh: First and foremost would be my father. My father died in December 1990. I wish he had lived much longer so that I could have had him on my program as a guest. He was a man who never left his little hometown of Cape Girardeau, Missouri. He was a man whose opinions were not softened—he told you what he believed full brunt force, right between the eyes. He was not mean, but he was not apologetic about what he fervently believed. And he was an independent thinker.

I remember when I was six years old, on the way to Sunday school one morning, I asked him, "Daddy, how do you know there's a God?" He said he finally convinced himself of the existence of God after realizing that any God who was believed in—as he believed in Him and as most people do—has to be a loving God. He said, "I do not believe that the God I know, love and believe in could create beings capable of being that which they weren't. We would not be tormented by the promise of eternity, everlasting life, if such were not possible." That was sufficient for him. That comforted him during times of doubt. He was full of that kind of original thought on every issue he felt passionately about.

[Q] Playboy: Perhaps the most significant aspect of your conservative strategy has been your attempt to recapture the language. But where a responsible conservative might take issue with, say, feminists, you call them "feminazis."

[A] Limbaugh: No, I don't. No, no, no, no, no. I have been misstated, misrepresented, misreported on this. A feminazi is not a feminist. A feminazi is two things: a woman to whom the most important thing in life is seeing to it that every abortion possible happens. I've not found more than 20 of those, but they exist, and they do this to advance their political agenda and hate for men. And then there's another kind of feminazi, who demands from you total compliance with the feminist agenda, or you're an enemy. But a woman who wants equal pay for equal work—who wants independence, who wants to enjoy life—that's not a feminazi.

[Q] Playboy: All the same, you're the first major conservative who has taken real risks with language—this in a culture where political correctness is rampant.

[A] Limbaugh: I don't think I'm taking risks with the language. What I'm doing is taking risks with point of view, with ideology. I do things that are just not done. I make fun of liberal sacred cows, and that's just not done. It's fine to make fun of Dan Quayle, to crack all kinds of jokes. But say the same things about Al Gore? Why, no! Times are too serious now. We mustn't make fun of our leaders. These are crucial times.

[Q] Playboy: Let's get back to the feminazi question. In at least nine out of ten of the stories we've read about you, that word is used to illustrate the extremes to which you go, perhaps, to get attention.

[A] Limbaugh: The last thing in the world someone should do is respond to critics. If I did that I'd be neutered by now—I would be in the nearest insane asylum wearing 15 straitjackets. My whole career has been nothing but: "You shouldn't do it that way, you bigot, you sexist, you homophobe, you pig, you right-wing warmonger, you whatever."

[Q] Playboy: But your credibility——

[A] Limbaugh: My credibility and believability are crucial to my having long legs, and I want to be the arbiter of how long I last. I don't look at myself as riding the crest of a wave: "Oooh, better get it while it's hot." I'm defining the wave, and that wave goes up or down depending on how I feel. My audience has done nothing but skyrocket, and I dare say that by the time this interview is published, we will have become the most listened-to commercial radio program of any kind in the history of the United States. I am probably in touch with more members of my audience than anybody in the media today, by way of electronic note via CompuServe, by way of telephone calls, by way of public appearances and so forth. I hear it all. I have to be confident. I have to be aggressive. I am not trying to make people mad. That's going to happen anyway when you say what you think. And if you embellish what you think—as I do, with bravado, flair, confidence and braggadocio—then they hate you. Nobody's supposed to be that sure of himself.

Now, I dare say the term feminazi has not held me back. I know it wouldn't hurt me to make concessions like: "Yes, that was a youthful indiscretion" and "Gee, I'm sorry for it, and I am never, ever going to use it again." But I don't think that's necessary.

[Q] Playboy: Let's cover some of the other issues you talk about on your programs. If you were given control of the economic machine, would you do anything with Social Security?

[A] Limbaugh: The solution to Social Security is to start with a generation not yet born and say it's over at a certain future date. People who are alive today wouldn't stand for that. It's just not a political possibility. I would tell Social Security recipients of the future: "Don't count on it. It isn't going to be there." This may need to be one of those truly bipartisan things. The only alternative is to institutionalize it formally and honestly. To say: "It is now a policy of the United States that we are going to pay you X amount for not doing anything when you reach a certain age." But frankly, I don't know what to do about it. It's easy to sit here and theorize when I don't have to face the consequences of whatever I come up with.

[Q] Playboy: What about health care? Is this a job for private business or is it something the government can and must do?

[A] Limbaugh: The government can't do it and must not do it. That would only confound it. Especially a government of, by and for a bunch of Sixties radical liberals whose charm has gone bad—a bunch of theoreticians who write their solutions to all these weighty social problems in term papers and doctoral theses. Then all of a sudden they find themselves in positions of power. They pant heavily, but when confronted by the awful specter of reality, they find that their theories are worthless. These are pointy-headed academicians who have spent time at Oxford thinking they're better people because they care more, feel more, are more concerned and compassionate. And they are devastated when they find out that their good intentions don't amount to a hill of beans when mixed with rotten ideas.

[Q] Playboy: Let's get back to health care.

[A] Limbaugh: What's wrong with the health care system is easy to enunciate: Market forces long ago ceased to be a factor in the cost of medical care at every level. If medical care were priced like every other product—a hotel room, an airline seat, a ticket to a baseball game, a washer and dryer—to where the people who needed it could afford it or at least finance it reasonably, then there wouldn't be a crisis.

I'll illustrate the problem. I went to a doctor two years ago, and at the time I was in the process of straightening out a complication in my health care coverage with my union—God, I cringe when I say my union. Anyway, I went to the doctor and I wanted to pay for it. I said, "Look, I can give you my credit card." They said: "No, give us your Blue Cross." I said, "I don't have Blue Cross." They said, "Do you have some kind of a health plan?" I said, "I just want to pay you cash. Here, let me write you a check." But they had no mechanism to take payment from me. It screwed them up. It confused them. They had to find a nurse to take the check, to create a file that said they had been paid.

So there is no sense of commodity, no sense of exchange, no sense of barter, no sense of shopping at all. Competition always ensures quality; it ensures low prices, or at least the lowest price you can have. Once you start controlling all these things at the government level, like Hillary Clinton will, the first thing that goes is quality. We're going to get less care and it's going to cost everybody more. Sure it's going to be equal—equally bad for everybody.

[Q] Playboy: Let's talk about drugs. Recently you've been quite close to William Bennett. Can you think of one—just one—achievement in Bill Bennett's almost four-year reign as drug czar? We're somewhat puzzled by your obdurate stand against drug legalization.

[A] Limbaugh: Bennett and drugs?

[Q] Playboy: Bennett: four years, high-profile character, great intellect. What did he do in his war against drugs? Was anything achieved?

[A] Limbaugh: Hard to measure whether anything was achieved. I mean, you have to believe the statistics that say cocaine use is down.

[Q] Playboy: Marijuana is now $150 an ounce on the street, where it used to be $275. That means there must be more of it out there. Yet just a month ago a police officer was killed in a marijuana bust in New York. How can you justify that?

[A] Limbaugh: I don't justify that. I don't justify killing a cop. If you want to say that the legalization of drugs is designed simply to remove as much criminal activity as possible, by definition, I can't argue with that. But that's not going to solve the drug problem. By legalizing drugs, all you're going to do is define further deviancy downward. Freedom has to have some limits. Why have laws that sanction and encourage harmful, destructive behavior? Why not just get rid of cops altogether? Why don't we just legalize crime? Let's just make everything legal. That will fix all our problems.

[Q] Playboy: Let's try another approach. You're a constitutionalist. In 1919 the American people required an amendment to the Constitution to make illegal the sale and purchase of alcohol. So why don't we need an amendment to the Constitution to make traffic in marijuana or any other drug illegal?

[A] Limbaugh: So, challenge the thing constitutionally. The attempt to make alcohol illegal failed because it took something away that was already widespread and legal.

[Q] Playboy: Until 1937 marijuana was legal across the counter in any drugstore in America.

[A] Limbaugh: Yeah, but it was medicinally used, primarily. But why compound the effects of alcohol anyway? We know alcohol is a legal drug, and it's the most abused and damaging drug we have.

Look, it's not that I'm macho and demand people do things my way. But I think we have a duty to pass on values to our descendants. Values that will maintain the standards of behavior and ensure the survivability of the American way of life. And drugs are no different. There is not one bit of good that comes from using marijuana—other than medicinally for a few people. And there's certainly no good that comes from using cocaine. If you could go out and get stoned on coke every day and not affect me and not affect my society and not affect the values on which my society thrives, then I would be perfectly willing to let you destroy yourself. But you end up destroying more than yourself.

[Q] Playboy: Have you smoked marijuana?

[A] Limbaugh: I've smoked it twice.

[Q] Playboy: You inhaled?

[A] Limbaugh: Yeah, yeah. I never enjoyed it. I got sick to my stomach. Didn't throw up, but I felt nauseated. I never got high on it.

[Q] Playboy: If you had been caught using it, do you feel you should have taken the penalties—that you were committing a crime sufficient to require incarceration?

[A] Limbaugh: Well, no, because I'm a conservative, and I was doing it on an experimental basis. And I didn't go past the three-mile limit to do it. But, no, I had been.... Look, I am not going to be trapped here.

[Q] Playboy: You're not known for being intimidated about expressing your opinions, but lately you've softened the edge of your commentary on gays. True?

[A] Limbaugh: There's no question I've done that. My edge, as you call it, with regard to homosexuality dealt with one four-week period when I was moved, outraged, by an Act Up [AIDS Coalition to Unleash Power] protest at St. Patrick's Cathedral in which a mass was—I don't want to say infiltrated—disrupted. Condoms were thrown, the Host was desecrated, a number of insulting words were said and threatening behavior took place. So I followed this with a commentary that, in essence, said "Please take your behavior and leave it out of church." And then I engaged in an AIDS update that missed the mark totally and ended up being very insensitive to people who were dying. That was not the purpose of it, and I stopped it after a month. And on several occasions since then—on national television and on radio and so forth—I have apologized for it. But still it survives in the minds of gay activists, who, I think, love enemies. I mean, I think they utilize enemies well. They need them.

[Q] Playboy: Do you think homosexuality is a matter of choice, or is it preordained genetically and psychologically?

[A] Limbaugh: I am inclined to believe that it is not an active choice. I do think that if you get hold of people young enough and attempt to sway them, that homosexuality can be steered into them. I just don't see how it can be a choice. I know plenty of gay people, and they all insist that it wasn't. Some of my most ardent supporters think I'm being conned because I don't realize that these are perverts seeking to be perverts. But I just don't know too many people who seek to be perverts. It would certainly not be the most popular choice one could make in life.

[Q] Playboy: Shall we talk about abortion?

[A] Limbaugh: Give it a shot. Fire the questions.

[Q] Playboy: Many Americans believe the right-to-life movement is extreme.

[A] Limbaugh: Let me tell you something. There are extremists in the right-to-life movement, and there are plenty of them in the pro-choice movement. The arguments on the choice side of the issue are founded fundamentally in selfishness. The most sacred, beautiful thing on earth today is human life. And I believe that if we begin to treat it cavalierly and decide who lives and who dies, then we've cheapened it and are in the process of a societal decay. I mean, abortion is a huge profit center for a number of people. Let's face it, that's $300 an abortion times 1.6 million annually. Always follow the money, especially when people say it's not the money. It is the money.

[Q] Playboy: What is your stand on Roe vs. Wade?

[A] Limbaugh: I think it's bad constitutional law.

[Q] Playboy: So would you prefer to have it overturned?

[A] Limbaugh: Very simply, I think abortion is a moral choice to be determined in a democratic fashion by the people. I don't think that to bend and shape and stretch the Constitution—to distort it in order to find an obscure justification for this law—is the way to go about it. And I don't understand why the choice people are so afraid of this. If so many people are pro-choice, hell, throw it to a vote and be done with it.

[Q] Playboy: By state?

[A] Limbaugh: Yeah. Does a woman in our society have the right to do with her body anything she wants? No, there are laws against prostitution, there are laws against drug use. There are all kinds of precedents for society deciding what people can and can't do with their bodies. This goes for men, too. There's a second involvement here called sperm. It comes from somewhere; even if a woman is artificially inseminated, there's a father to be considered somewhere. And in many cases the father is not given legal standing in these matters. The feminists don't want that to happen, that would be the death knell of the whole pro-choice argument. Choicers don't even want to talk about it because, to them, that's the end of their argument if they admit they're talking about life.

[Q] Playboy: Suppose abortion was made illegal in certain states. Could you actually contemplate punishing a woman who has an abortion in this culture?

[A] Limbaugh: Nope. I can't.

[Q] Playboy: What about prostitution? Should that crime require incarceration?

[A] Limbaugh: Yeah. Well, incarceration.... I think there are better ways of humiliating people who engage in that. Publish the Johns' names in the paper. If you want to get rid of prostitution, make sure that every john is profiled on A Current Affair. That'll stop it.

[Q] Playboy: Let's move on. Music has been a big part of your life, correct?

[A] Limbaugh: Yes, I love music. I mean, I don't like Ravi Shankar playing music with his toes. I grew up playing Top 40 and that's still what I like the most.

[Q] Playboy: What do you think about rap?

[A] Limbaugh: I think rap is single-handedly destroying a segment of our population. I don't think there's anything uplifting or admirable about it. There may be exceptions. Look, when I was growing up it was the Beatles—and my parents hated the Beatles and the Rolling Stones. What did they not like about the Beatles? They didn't like their hair or the way the fans acted. But listen to the early Beatles songs. I Saw Her Standing There. I Want to Hold Your Hand. Love Me, Do. It wasn't until much later that the Beatles got into this revolution stuff.

Now look at rap music. You have 2 Live Crew describing the destruction of a vagina in a song called Me So Horny. It's not art. And you have the Ice-T controversy, Cop Killer. Here's an angry, bitter guy, a guy who's profited incredibly from the system. There's so much hypocrisy in rap.

[Q] Playboy: But look at the phenomenon itself. What is its genesis?

[A] Limbaugh: I think you need a psychiatrist to answer that, but I'll take a stab at it. The civil rights movement—the monolithic civil rights coalition—in this country has devastated black people by denying them the American Dream. They have said to them directly and indirectly, "It's not possible for you to survive in this country because you're black and you're never going to have a chance. The only chance you have is to let us fight your battles in Washington." So kids grow up thinking there's no hope, that they have no chance. But they are still human beings, and the natural yearning of the human spirit is freedom: "I want to be relevant" and "I want to matter" and "I want to get noticed." Everybody does. So I think rap is their way of saying, "Here we are." I would also venture to say that rap is founded on anger, and that the anger is misdirected.

[Q] Playboy: Many of your opinions are expressed in detail in your book The Way Things Ought to Be, which is about to surpass Iacocca as the top best-seller in American nonfiction history. Meanwhile, you're not the only one writing about your life, correct?

[A] Limbaugh: Right. There are two unauthorized biographies being written. Paul Colford of Newsday has just put his to bed, and some guy at the Los Angeles Times is calling people, trying to find dirt.

[Q] Playboy: Their interest is understandable. Your story covers such extremes of the American experience. Tell us the success story of Rush Limbaugh. How did it all begin?

[A] Limbaugh: I am very fortunate to have been born and raised in the Midwest. It is one of the key factors that has made it easy for me to relate to Americans.

[Q] Playboy: What did your house in Cape Girardeau look like?

[A] Limbaugh: It was small. Window air-conditioning units that blasted all the time, because my father was very hot-natured. It had a white-picket-fenced backyard, where I played Wiffle ball. I was punished by having to mow the yard. That's why to this day I hate the smell of freshly mowed grass.

[Q] Playboy: So this was not a plantation.

[A] Limbaugh: It was not a plantation, no.

[Q] Playboy: Not like in Roots or anything like that?

[A] Limbaugh:[Laughs] Oh, come on. A plantation with black servants.

[Q] Playboy: Well, much has been said about your family and the powerful lawyers who come from it. You grew up in an upper-middle-class environment.

[A] Limbaugh: My family is rich in the traditions of the work ethic. Most are lawyers, but there are some stragglers who are bank presidents. Some are still wandering aimlessly, searching for their golden answer. I did until I was 34 or 35.

[Q] Playboy: A lot was expected of you?

[A] Limbaugh: Very much so. My grandfather—who is 101 as we tape this interview—is a man whose image and reputation is flawless perfection. A man who never cursed, never smoked, never drank, never lied, never cheated. A man whose image is impeccable. Living up to that threw my dad through some loops. It threw a lot of us. But at the same time it benefited us. It's a small town and everybody wanted to know what everybody else was doing. And if they found out, they'd put it on the marquee at the local theater.

[Q] Playboy: How did the town react to your leaving school and becoming a disc jockey at 16?

[A] Limbaugh: Oh, the town didn't give a hoot about me at that point. It was more that my father was thinking, Oh, my God, how have I failed as a parent? My son is doomed for unhappiness. I had the reputation of quitting everything that I had at one time shown enthusiasm for. I was a Boy Scout Tenderfoot for a year. I hated it, but I did it because I thought it was something I should do.

[Q] Playboy: You've said that school was like a prison to you. You're a success and yet you never got a college degree.

[A] Limbaugh: Well, I flunked speech. I flunked because I refused to outline my speeches. And in my first year of college at Southeast Missouri State I had to take a phys ed course: ballroom dance, taught by a former drill sergeant in the Women's Army Corps. Ballroom dance. I didn't go. I mean, I was in love with radio—I was immersed in it—but, at the time, none of this seemed worthwhile.

[Q] Playboy: What seemed worthwhile?

[A] Limbaugh: Speech.

[Q] Playboy: Did you have an accent then?

[A] Limbaugh: Oh, yeah. People in southeast Missouri, where I'm from, have what is called the Swamp East Missouri twang. They say "git" and "yers." "Temperture." It's not Southern, it's not a drawl. It's kind of a twang. When I started in radio when I was 16, I heard a tape of myself and I was appalled. I literally just trained myself to speak. Every time I heard myself saying "git," I'd say "get, get"—silently to myself, and angrily, "get, get."

[Q] Playboy: When you quit college, did you have to sit down and confront your parents about it?

[A] Limbaugh: Yes. In fact, my parents had tried to salvage my education even before I got to that point. They drove me to college. They drove me to ballroom dance just so I couldn't skip class.

[Q] Playboy: Your father didn't like radio.

[A] Limbaugh: No, he didn't. He had actually owned part of a radio station—one-seventh of one—and when he looked around he saw nothing but a bunch of vagabonds. My family didn't understand how I was going to go anywhere by knowing all there was to know about the Osmond family, just so I could say so when I played an Osmond record.

Then I received an offer from a radio station in Pittsburgh. That meant going from Cape Girardeau—which is market 2000—to a top market. That's just not done. But my family didn't stop me. They were always supportive after that.

[Q] Playboy: Were you politically minded in those days?

[A] Limbaugh: Well, I was, but I wasn't allowed to be. I remember the first political comment I ever made. I was a DJ at radio station WIXZ, which is in McKeesport [a suburb of Pittsburgh]. I was doing a morning show, playing oldies; I did a lot of funny things then. Back then you could legally phone people and record their voices without them knowing it, without having to ask them for permission. I would call sporting goods stores and ask for a left-handed baseball bat. Or a hardware store and ask to rent flashbulbs. But one night I was watching Richard Nixon deliver the State of the Union address, and then came the Democratic response. I said, "What the hell is this Democratic response? I think it's horrible. This is the president of the United States. This is a State of the Union speech." Well, I got a call after my show was over that said, "You will refrain from offering political points of view on this show." OK. OK. It was not a big deal to me. It wasn't disappointing. At that point I had no earthly desire to do politics on the radio. I was using the name Jeff Christie then. I can't remember why I liked that name.

[Q] Playboy: Maybe because it's the diminutive of Christ.

[A] Limbaugh: [Laughs] Well, that may be some unconscious door you've unlocked. Anyway, if all you ever do is radio, you know your job is to go into a tiny room that's encased by glass and sit behind a microphone. And in order to have an attitude of confidence, bravado and positiveness, you have to talk into that microphone and envision everybody listening to you—actively listening to you. Not passively. If you sit in there and say, "Why am I doing this?" you are not going to succeed. You have to create an illusion. You must. And I think that is the beginning of the ego problems and self-esteem problems that radio performers have. Because once you leave that studio and go out with a friend and are introduced to somebody, nobody's ever heard of you. Nobody knows who you are. Well, that's a serious attack on the illusion you've created, and you begin to question it. It's a fantasy world in that studio. People who do nothing but radio are not nearly as successful as those who have done something else in their lives or are doing something concurrently.

[Q] Playboy: But you were doing pretty well in Pittsburgh, for a young kid, at least.

[A] Limbaugh: I was, yes. I was 21. I was making $25,000 a year. I was driving a Buick Riviera. That was an $8000 car.

[Q] Playboy: Yet you eventually left Pittsburgh. Why?

[A] Limbaugh: I was let go. Actually, I was fired twice in Pittsburgh. I had been fired from another station for playing Under My Thumb by the Rolling Stones too many times.

[Q] Playboy: No kidding?

[A] Limbaugh: Yeah. That violated the record-rotation law.

[Q] Playboy: There have been several stories about how you avoided the Vietnam conflict.

[A] Limbaugh: Well, first thing: There was no avoidance. You imply that I undertook action.

[Q] Playboy: Escaped the war.

[A] Limbaugh: Well, I didn't do anything. I did have a student deferment because I was in college for that one year. And I had a medical deferment for what is called a pilonidal cyst. It's a tailbone cyst. I don't know if it's still something that disqualifies you, but it did then. If the thing flared up, which they are wont to do, it required major surgery. So I didn't do anything to avoid the war. And had I been called, I would have gone.

[Q] Playboy: And politically you were then as you are now?

[A] Limbaugh: I was a hawk.

[Q] Playboy: You've never been anything but a conservative?

[A] Limbaugh: Right. You know, Playboy readers are going to smirk at this, but to this day I do not own a pair of blue jeans—and it's not just because of my size. The generation I grew up with wore T-shirts, tie-dyes and jeans. Peace signs all over them. At my little college, we had our contingent of antiwar protesters on campus, and they were all blue-jean-clad. But I started working when I was 16 and I loved the establishment. I wanted to be a part of the establishment. Capital E. I wanted to fit in with it, at 16. I wanted to get an early start on the Eighties, and the selfishness and greed that prospered then. I wink. I say this with a wink.

[Q] Playboy: Moving on. From Pittsburgh you migrated to the Kansas City Royals baseball team, where you worked in sales and marketing. You have referred to those times as somewhat dark.

[A] Limbaugh: Well, I wasn't a personality at all. I was stifled, stepped on. In a corporate situation, individuality is usually present only among people on the corporation's fast track. I was not going anywhere there. The purpose of a sports team is to win games. I had nothing to do with that.

[Q] Playboy: You were married at that time.

[A] Limbaugh: Yes, I was. I was married twice when I was with the Royals. The first time my divorce took place about six months after I started there. Then I remarried two years later. Kansas City was the site of profound failure for me.

[Q] Playboy: Were you depressed?

[A] Limbaugh: Yes. It was in those last years there that, for the first time in my life, I began to judge myself on such things as how much money I wasn't making and, therefore, what I couldn't afford to do. And that seemed to determine my relationships and friendships. I was going backward. I had been making $25,000 in Pittsburgh, and yet here I was, 32 years old, making $14,000 or $15,000. And I was surrounded by tons of money.

Yet, through all that I was never doubtful of my success. From the time I was six years old, I have known that I was going to do something, whatever it was, with fame and notoriety. I've never, ever doubted that. It got me through a lot of the dark days. I always knew that it was going to happen. Always.

[Q] Playboy: And meanwhile you continued to educate yourself. You're a voracious reader, right?

[A] Limbaugh: Yes—well, I wasn't then. I didn't think I needed college. It wasn't until two years after I quit college and went to Pittsburgh that I regretted not being educated. I didn't regret not finishing college per se; I didn't regret not having a degree. I regretted that I was a dumb ass. So I embarked on a voracious, voluminous, omnivorous course of action designed to educate myself. I have been totally devoted to and obsessed with staying informed. And I graduated—to put it in terms that people understand—in 1983 when I left the Royals and went to the first adult radio station I ever worked for—a station that had me doing commentary. Finally, here was my test. And it all just fell into place.

[Q] Playboy: Media tycoon Ed McLaughlin heard your Sacramento radio show and took a gamble on you, bringing you to New York on a $150,000 contract. Was that an exciting time for you?

[A] Limbaugh: Oh, yes—but it was also agonizing. See, I had found everything I'd ever wanted in life in Sacramento. Finally, after all these years, I mattered. I was a practicing member of the community, I was a big fish in a little pond, I owned a house. That's why I thought, Oh, I've screwed myself—$150,000 is not going to be enough to enjoy life in New York.

[Q] Playboy: Was it?

[A] Limbaugh: No. It was tight for about a year. But the percentage was fair: $150,000 against 30 percent of the net, and then that escalated two ways, with years and with ratings. We tore up the original contract last year, rewrote it and extended it through 1999. Are you going to ask at some point what the total sum of my efforts amounts to?

[Q] Playboy: We weren't, but we will now.

[A] Limbaugh: Well, there is so much speculation about this.

[Q] Playboy: Then let's clear it up.

[A] Limbaugh: Yes, why not clear it up? [Laughs] I'm always curious about this. This is a little game for me. Would you mind if I tell you all I do, without giving you dollar amounts?

[Q] Playboy: Go ahead.

[A] Limbaugh: Let's just look: I have a book that has about 2.5 million copies, which led to a contract for another book—with an advance. There's the radio show, on 600 stations, with five minutes of commercial time an hour on each—so that's 15 minutes of commercials every day, 45 minutes a week. On TV we have 220 stations for a 30-minute show, eight minutes of commercial spots. I have a monthly newsletter, which is up to about 270,000 subscribers at a yearly rate of $29.95. Now what else is there? There's the audio version of the book, with 200,000 to 250,000 copies. And the paperback is going to hit in September.

[Q] Playboy: So bottom line: more than $5 million?

[A] Limbaugh: For the year?

[Q] Playboy: Yes.

[A] Limbaugh: That's true.

[Q] Playboy: That's what we needed to know—and that's why America is the place of miracles. Let's talk about something a little different. A female caller on one of your recent shows said that she would be glad—indeed, honored—if you would father a child with her. You replied that, right now, you were incapable of a successful courtship. Why?

[A] Limbaugh: Oh, we're finally getting to the Playboy questions.

[Q] Playboy: You said it in front of 15 million people.

[A] Limbaugh: That was one of those instances where I was feeling a little sorry for myself, because I think it's perhaps true. The past five years—since my divorce and my move from Sacramento to New York—I have been resolutely focused. I mean, narrowly focused.

[Q] Playboy: On?

[A] Limbaugh: Me. I think that's one of the reasons why I've succeeded, because I've been able to immerse myself totally. However, that has created a void that, at the age of 42, I've only recently contemplated. I look at other people who are just as committed to their careers as I am, and yet they still manage to have a family and a relationship and other things that are not related to what they do. With my sudden realization of this void, I've found myself desiring to fill it. But I've been afraid to, because my relationships have basically been sour and have ended up being distractions. I don't want to be distracted now. I don't want to get my feelings hurt. I don't want to feel sorry for myself or sad or any of that. I need to be up. I need to be enthused. And I need to like myself.

Then I say to myself: That's a cowardly attitude. You have to take risks. Why don't you look at all this as something that could enhance your life? I ask myself these questions, and I answer, well, I recall my experiences. My experiences have been less than sustaining in terms of happiness and contentment.

[Q] Playboy: Do you know why?

[A] Limbaugh: Yes. When I say I'm incapable of a successful courtship, it's because I don't feel that I can be myself totally. I hate being coy when I don't want to be. I hate acting uninterested when I don't want to. But you must. Nice guys never get laid. I'm amazed at the truth in that.

[Q] Playboy: Give us some idea of what you like in a woman. Intelligence?

[A] Limbaugh: Of course. I consider that basic. I mean, she has to have her own life and be capable of making herself happy. She has to have her own reason for wanting to do things. Confidence. But the bells and whistles—see, I have this theory. When one speaks of love, I think of magical, mystical emotions over which humans have no control. Generally, it just happens to you. When you're in love and you don't want to be—such as when the one you love tells you to go to hell—you can't just walk out and say "I don't want to be in love tonight" and get over it. Otherwise, there would be no such thing as heartbreak. But when you act like you don't give a rat's ass about someone, that's when they're all over you. If at 42—or even when I'm older—I find somebody I care about, I don't know if I'm going to want to act like I don't love her or care.

[Q] Playboy: Yet surely your success has cast you into another class of eligibility.

[A] Limbaugh: Yes, but Woody Allen was right about one thing: All success means is that you get rejected by a higher class of women.

[Q] Playboy: That's kind of a negative outlook. Besides, we don't see you adopting a Jewish New York comedian's attitude.

[A] Limbaugh: You're right—but it sounds good. And maybe it'll make Jewish New York liberals think I'm partially OK. Actually, you've caught me in one of those periods of introspection. This is new. The reason I think I'm contemplating this is that in the past six months I have met a couple of women who have made the bells and whistles go off.

But I've not been comfortable with it. I'm no longer willing to pursue in reckless abandon as I did when I was somewhat younger. That's because it's a distraction. I'm afraid to actually commit.

[Q] Playboy: Your personal life is very public. The New York Post ran an item about you and a woman being spotted together in Central Park.

[A] Limbaugh: That could have been avoided if she hadn't called the newspaper.

[Q] Playboy: Really?

[A] Limbaugh: [Laughs] Of course.

[Q] Playboy: Well, we hope she wasn't one of the bells-and-whistles women.

[A] Limbaugh: No, no. Listen, this is not consistent. I've gotten introspective with you here and I may appear depressed. I'm not. We all go through these periods of introspection, but it hasn't affected my concentration and my devotion to work. That's important because, as I told you, I feel that I have to prove myself every day. It's tough being me, because there are a lot of people trying to convince me that I am crucial, that I am a cut above mere humanity. A young woman once said to me, "This is your sacrifice." I said, "What do you mean?" She said, "You can't have a normal life. You are too important. You are on a mission."

[Q] Playboy: Well you are a role model for millions of people.

[A] Limbaugh: I understand that. And I'm not trying to engage in false humility, but at some point you have to pull back. I don't have to look at myself in the mirror and say, "OK, hang on here, Rush. Don't lose yourself." Right now, I'm in total control, despite those efforts to get me to elevate. So what I'm saying is, there are people who are just as important as I am, even more so.

•

[Congress passed President Clinton's budget plan after our initial interviews. We wanted to ask Limbaugh about that, and to follow up on questions asked in the earlier sessions. Although Limbaugh's representatives had originally agreed to this final session, they now balked, and it was only with considerable negotiating that Mano was permitted to meet again with Limbaugh.]

[Q] Playboy: Thank you for giving us this time. We know how busy you are, and we have just a few questions for you.

[A] Limbaugh: I want it on the record, by the way, that I resent this follow-up. I don't have to justify what I think to anybody at Playboy. I don't know who asked you to come back, but they're probably not satisfied because it doesn't make me look bad enough in some idiot's eyes at the editorial board.

[Q] Playboy: OK. One issue we didn't touch on in our earlier sessions is the welfare problem. Is welfare really the evil that you and other conservatives paint it?

[A] Limbaugh: Certainly. It is bankrupting the nation. Defense isn't bankrupting the nation; welfare payments to people who are otherwise capable are bankrupting the nation. Here's a recent example: California Governor Pete Wilson has suggested that Californians simply cannot afford to pay for the health care, general welfare and education for illegal aliens. But then representatives of the illegal aliens responded, "That's un-American."

That's where we've gone wrong. The definition of American is to take the money produced by hardworking, risk-taking Americans and give it to illegal immigrants who come here to sponge. Illegal aliens. Then, when we want to pull back on it because we can't afford it anymore, it's called un-American. This is a clear example of how the welfare state has gone totally wrong. Welfare states have failed around the world: the Soviet Union, Western Europe, Germany, Sweden, London, Paris. They're going down the tubes—they're in horrible shape—because the dream doesn't work, the utopia can't exist. We are headed down the same path, and the American people know it.

[Q] Playboy: In our original sessions you said that President Clinton will do apocalyptic damage to the economy before he's through. Can you be more specific about that?

[A] Limbaugh: "Be more specific about it." I think I've been as specific as anybody you've probably ever talked to about it. I'll be glad to update it, but I think it's bullshit to have us sit here, because these are insulting questions. Everybody knows the answer to this.

The reason we're going to do apocalyptic economic damage is that we don't have a five-year plan. There's no such thing—it is not allowed by law. Every budget is a one-year budget, then projections are made on the next four years based on the mistakes and projections in the current budget.

So, there's not one genuine budget cut in this one-year budget. They may be cutting defense a little, but we're making that back with loose spending in other areas. The budget's not getting smaller, is it? But who's getting taxed? The people who create jobs. In the past two years, small business has created 100 percent of the jobs while big business has laid people off: IBM, 100,000 here; Kodak, 10,000 over there; Apple, 2000 here. Big corporations are downsizing and they're not facing a tax increase. But small business is facing rising tax rates of from 31 percent to more than 42 percent. And in some states, if you factor in the state and local tax, you're paying more than 50 percent. Small business earnings—profits—are being eaten up in taxes. It's an all-out assault. And then, not satisfied with that, we have to be retroactive to January first. You cannot tax the wealth-producing sector to this degree and have economic growth. It is just impossible.

Now the Clinton administration says, "But wait, we're going to give you tax breaks if you invest in your small business." Or, "If you start a new business and hold it for five years, we'll give you a big capital-gains break." What they don't understand is: What are these people going to invest? Their profits and earnings are being taxed with these new rates. When confronted with that reality, the administration says, "But wait, we've got interest rates down for you." Well, they have done no such thing. Interest rates are down because the bond market is convinced there's not going to be any economic growth. Inflation drives interest rates, and inflation is low. We may be in a deflationary cycle. Interest rates have been plummeting for 24 months, long before Clinton even got serious about running for president. Besides, who wants to borrow money in an economy like this? There's no confidence that you're going to be able to earn enough to pay it back, and if you do earn enough, it's going to be taxed. So it's back to the zero-sum game.

Then they say, "Look at the stock market. It's at an all-time high. They love our plan!" They don't love the plan. They're scared to death. The reason the stock market is going up is that it's the best risk you can take right now in terms of return. The stock market has long ago ceased to be an indicator of economic strength and activity—it set all-time highs during the 1990–1992 recession that George Bush was in charge of. People are putting their money there because it's the only place to go right now. But nobody's happy about it.

And where's the party? How come 90 percent of the Democratic congressmen and senators who signed the budget bill didn't show up for the signing, and the ones who were there hid their faces behind pieces of paper? Because they didn't want to be seen anywhere near the signing of this bill. Nobody wanted this bill. It's a rotten bill.

The concept that many people can gain at the same time is totally foreign to this administration. So small businesses, knowing that Hillary Rodham Clinton's marvelous tinkerings with health care are right around the corner, still don't know what the cost of business is going to be. All they know is that they're not going to be able to expand, they're not going to have the money. We have targeted just the rich. We have targeted just small business. We have targeted just those who create the wealth.

The administration has said, "You guys are the enemy, and we're going to fix whatever is wrong. We have to get fairness back in the plan." What's fairness? This is nothing but pure get-even-with-them-ism. The Clinton administration has one agenda: to move power, money and culture as far to the left as possible. And the middle class? I want to tell you something: The reason the middle class is not celebrating that their taxes are not going up is people like me. My show has finally informed them—made the complex understandable. They now know that it is the people who create their jobs who have been targeted and assaulted here.

Now, clean that up and make it understandable.

[Q] Playboy: That was about as clean as anyone could make it.

[A] Limbaugh: You understood it, huh? OK, good.

[Q] Playboy: Which leads to our next question. You're an excellent showman. Is it possible that you use that showmanship to sell what are actually pretty unattractive political points of view?

[A] Limbaugh: No. I am not coming forward with showmanship and articulating some foreign concept that a bunch of unthinking robots are being programmed to believe. I don't have that kind of power. Nobody in the media has that kind of power.

The fact of the matter is: I am a profound success because I relentlessly pursue the truth, and I do so with the epitome of accuracy. That sets me apart from mainstream journalists. Talk to my audience and without exception they'll say, "Finally, there's a guy who says what I've always been thinking."

I validate. I don't orchestrate, dictate or otherwise cause people to ponder. I simply validate. And some people will indeed listen and say, "You know, I always thought I was a liberal, but he says exactly what I think." People are not the blithering dunderheads that many in the dominant media culture—which obviously includes the editorial staff of Playboy—would like to believe they are. And that's why the media are obviously so threatened.

[Q] Playboy: A follow-up on race: It is perceived by some that you are antiminority—maybe even racist.

[A] Limbaugh: Whoever thinks that is simply wrong. If they think I am racist or—what did you say?

[Q] Playboy: Antiminority.

[A] Limbaugh: Antiminority, that's just wrong. It is untrue. I ask anybody with an open mind and intellectual honesty to listen to my radio show or watch my TV show—listen to the blacks or other minorities or women who call my show, and listen to the way they're treated and the way they're portrayed. You will find blacks on my show far less threatening and far better examples of the black population, en masse, than you will find on any other late-night show. Like Arsenio Hall's. I think the way blacks are portrayed on my show is far better than the way they're portrayed on his.

[Q] Playboy: But the perception that you're antiminority——

[A] Limbaugh: Those are just the musings of a liberal who has a prejudice about conservatism and assumes that conservative means antiminority, exclusive majority, whatever. It's absolute nonsense, and it's a question, as I say, borne of intellectual laziness and vapidity. Whoever came up with these questions should know they're irrelevant. "Some people say, 'You are this,' and 'You are that.'" Well, some people say that Playboy ought to be shut down, too, but I don't think Playboy's going to spend a whole lot of time dealing with that. They have more important things to do, because they have survived. They have a market. Same with me. I've survived, and I don't think you survive on hate or bigotry. I don't think you become as big as I am—as loved as I am, as broad-based in my appeal as I am—if what you do is based on being antiminority.

What I am—and you guys have to understand this—is antiliberal. I think liberalism is a scourge. It destroys the human spirit. It destroys economies. It destroys prosperity. It assigns sameness to everybody. And wherever I find it, I oppose it. It happens to be in many of the minorities you've identified—Hispanics, blacks, the multicultural movement, feminists. Liberalism is where they're aligned. And so I'm opposed to them ideologically. But on no other basis do I feel bothered by them.

[Q] Playboy: You told us in our first session that you've made a lot of money. Do you mind telling us how you use it, say, to entertain yourself?

[A] Limbaugh: No. I save it—almost 100 percent of it—in case places like Playboy actually drive me off the air. That way, I'll have a nest egg to rely on.

[Q] Playboy: All right—moving on. You said that during the Reagan era, people were proud to be Americans again, and that to try to revise those years is a criminal act. But how do you answer the charge that, under Reagan, the U.S. has turned from a lender to a borrower nation? And how would you resolve the deficit challenge?

[A] Limbaugh: How would I answer the charge that the U.S. has turned from a lender to a borrower? I don't think it's a charge. It's a fact. I have yet to assign any specific damage that has resulted from it. [Sarcastically] But I have total confidence that Bill Clinton will fix it. As for resolving the deficit challenge, let me tell you what we need to do—and this could be quite lengthy:

Our problem resides in the way we budget. We use something called the "current services baseline" to budget. In essence, Congress now sits down with the president and they write a budget, but they pay no attention to current data. They simply take the current services—that's why it's called the current services baseline; it is primarily outlays and revenues—and, by law, they may now just say, "We're going to spend 10 or 12 or maybe as high as 13 percent more this year on that line item than we did on the previous line item."

Now let's say you and I ran a business. And let's say it was a $50 million business, and our income one year was $45 million. We have a $5 million deficit. That's a problem, and we know that in order to make that $5 million back—and to stay even—we have to do something. Maybe we have to cut some workers or close a plant, cut back on whatever expenses we can—paper clips and that kind of thing—until we make that $5 million back.

But that is not looked at here. The previous year's information is not factored in at all—only the increase allowed under the current services baseline is factored in. That's why the budget grows in such exponential ways. It is in the current services baseline that the mystery of the phantom spending reduction is to be found.

We hear about deficit reduction. We hear about spending cuts. Yet we also hear that after five years of the Clinton plan, the federal deficit will still be around $280 billion, while $1 trillion will be added to the national debt. So people said, "Wait a minute. If we got deficit reduction, and if we're reducing the size of government, how come the national debt is being added to by $1 trillion?" I will illustrate that for you by bringing it down to the family-lifestyle level:

Let's say that you and your wife earn $50,000 a year, and your automobile costs, oh, $25,000, and you're amortizing that in monthly payments. You decide that next year you're going to buy a Mercedes. You're going to get a $100,000 car. Your salary is going to go up four to five percent—you hope. You think you're going to get a raise, but you really don't know, just like the government assumes it's going to get more revenue, but it's not really sure.

So you're going to spend 100 grand. You think you can afford the payments and so you've budgeted that. Next year comes. You get scared. You say, "No, I'm not going to buy a Mercedes, I'm going to buy a Corvette," and you spend only 50 grand. Now you're spending $25,000 more this year than you did on your current car, but you're telling yourself you saved $50,000 because you're not going to spend the 100 grand you planned on spending for the Mercedes. And that's what happens in the U.S. budget. They are telling us that $56 billion is going to be cut from Medicare over the next five years, but in truth, real Medicare spending is going to increase about six to eight percent—down from the 12 percent to 13 percent projected in the current services baseline. That's how you save money in Washington, and that's how you get a spending cut.

So the national debt continues to get bigger, and the deficit continues to exist. You could construct other household examples to illustrate this. In fact, one could say that women have been doing this for a long time. I remember my grandmother buying two months' worth of Tide because it was on sale at half off. She took cash from the family budget and spent it all on Tide—leaving the family with no cash flow for a month, but claiming she had saved all this money. Americans do this all the time. But in Washington it's horrendous, because they're not honest with us about the way that it happens. They try to fool us with the terminology: deficit cuts, spending cuts, deficit reduction—and it isn't happening.

Now, your question was: How do we resolve it? There is a solution. I was first exposed to this by Larry Kudlow of Bear Stearns, and I have since run it by a number of other economists who also think it would work, using the projections in the Clinton budget plan.

Many economists feel that we should use the rates of revenue growth without tax increases. They're saying: "Let's freeze spending—not cut it, just freeze it—at every level across the board. We'll even factor in cost of living adjustments to inflation. Therefore, if the inflation rate is two percent, then we'll raise every item. As theorized, in five years—with no tax increases at all, just freezing spending—we'll be down to a $60 billion deficit and on our way to a balanced budget." I feel this is a theory worth trying. It is certainly something we're not doing. In commonsense terms, it's the only thing to do.

[Q] Playboy: In her New York Times profile of you, Maureen Dowd portrayed you as somewhat of a lonely type. Our questions: What were you like in high school? Were you active socially? Did you date a lot? Were you already career-minded?

[A] Limbaugh: My high school life was as normal as the average American kid's.

[Q] Playboy: That's it?

[A] Limbaugh: There's nothing there. [Into tape recorder] Editors of Playboy: It was entirely normal.

[Q] Playboy: Looking down the line, can you see yourself like H. L. Mencken in his 70s—languishing somewhere, unlistened to, having once been the great social commentator of his era?

[A] Limbaugh: Sure. And I don't want to be a curmudgeon. I want to have other sources of happiness in my life. So I say: Rush, you'd better find other outlets. You can't expect to get 100 percent satisfying feedback every day for the rest of your life. If you get into that habit, you're headed for misery, because it's not going to last.

At some point I'm going to get tired of this. There have to be other sources of self-satisfaction, other things from which I derive happiness.

[Q] Playboy: And if there aren't?

[A] Limbaugh: Then maybe I'll overstay my time—go beyond it to where it isn't fun. But that's the last thing in the world I want to happen.

"Jesus Christ said: 'Go to where the sinners are.' So here I am in Playboy, attempting to clean it up."