What is the best proof yet that Rush Limbaugh is the true voice of the modern, hilariously out-of-touch conservative movement? His tacky $44 million Palm Beach compound!

Limbaugh bought the big mansion there on in 1998 for a paltry $3.98 million, and picked up all the rest of those buildings bit by bit by the end of the decade. (All this before Rush's eight-year, $31 million contract in 2001 and eight year, $400+ million extension in 2008!) His neighbors have never really cared for him, because they're snooty elitists who look down on things like prescription drug abuse (at least, public prescription drug abuse).

So—this post is our gift to Rush, and to Harry Reid, and to James Carville. Rush and the Dems have stumbled into a mutually beneficial relationship: after years of hoping he'd go away if they ignored him, they now embrace his virulent babbling, and they especially appreciate his version of conservative ideology, which is "anything that gets Rush's name out there."

He feeds on the hatred and insults of people like, you know, us, so hey, look at how tacky his stupid houses are! And while our previous policy was that the rotund broadcaster was totally irrelevant, now we'll amend that: he's relevent purely as a symbol of a Republican party that appeals only to aging white men.

"His positives for voters under 40 was 11 percent," Carville recalled with a degree of amazement, alluding to a question about whether voters had a positive or negative view of the talk show host. Paul Begala, a close friend of Carville, Greenberg and White House Chief of Staff Rahm Emanuel, said they found Limbaugh's overall ratings were even lower than the Rev. Jeremiah Wright, Obama's controversial former pastor, and William Ayers, the domestic terrorist and Chicago resident who Republicans sought to tie to Obama during the campaign.

So while Rush holds no sway over things like policy and even Republcian strategy, his worth as a symbol is, for the moment, incalculable. He is Reverend Wright. Or Barbra Streisand! Or, most importantly, Jane Fonda, with the entire Republican party as John Kerry. The Wright distractions didn't work on Obama because he was a charismatic candidate with a compelling pitch. Jane Fonda had precisely nothing to do with John Kerry, but she stuck on him, because he was not a coherent and attractive response to the first Bush term.

As long as Republicans remain in the wilderness, Rush can feed off their misery. He's a secret liberal! Let's all help him build another wing on his hideous mansion!