When I wrote about Rush Limbaugh last week, I got hundreds of responses from so-called "dittoheads." They assured me that they take him seriously when he asserts his status as the spokesman for American conservatives.

This is ridiculous. I know conservatism. I was writing groundbreaking conservative commentary back when Limbaugh was spinning vinyl records. Limbaugh is no conservative. So then what is he?

Republican National Committee Chairman Michael Steele recently termed him "an entertainer." For that, Steele is said to be in danger of losing his job. But that term seems a bit too polite when you consider what Limbaugh's really up to.

Consider his relationship with General Motors. In a 2007 article in Automotive News headlined "General Motors Payola," writer Mary Connelly told how "General Motors is recruiting many of America's best known radio personalities -- including Rush Limbaugh, Bill O'Reilly, Laura Schlessinger and Whoopi Goldberg -- to talk up its vehicles on the air."

The article noted that the company didn't pay the stars directly but advertised on their shows and gave them cars to drive and other favors. In return, the talkers would plug GM products. But not during advertisements. They would do so during the normal course of their on-air patter. In other words, Limbaugh would go from offering some insight about national politics to saying this:

"GM has a ton of momentum. They are working hard and they are thinking smart. Believe in General Motors, folks. They're a classic American company doing it all."

A ton of momentum? True. But it was all going in the wrong direction. A couple of months before Limbaugh made that statement in July 2007, I wrote a column about the collapse of the U.S. auto industry. Chrysler had just been dumped by Daimler-Benz and was headed for bankruptcy, the top industry experts told me. "The same fate may await Ford and GM," I wrote.

The reason for the impending demise was obvious to any true conservative. The Big Three had engaged in a practice that we adherents of the free-market call "captive regulation." Instead of competing fairly in the free market for cars, they lobbied Congress to rig the market in favor of the obsolete and inefficient SUVs and trucks they were building.

Why did I get this right while Limbaugh got it wrong? Perhaps it's because the only thing I ever took from a car company was the check I got for working on the assembly line at Ford back when I went to Rutgers. As a member of the mainstream media, I'm not permitted to take free stuff or promote products.

Meanwhile radio talkers of all stripes were accepting inducements to push GM products. The article quotes GM director Sam Mancuso boasting of the 17 national radio talkers whose favors he'd purchased. "Radio personalities have unique relationships with their listeners. They make a real emotional connection. The audience knows they are being genuine."

Hmmm, they sound genuine when they're selling their services. What does that remind you of? Me, too. Limbaugh may be a hooker with a heart of gold. But he's still a hooker. And that is the category into which all of these radio talkers rightly belong. Limbaugh loves to deride honest journalists as members of the "drive-by media," but he's part of what I like to call "the streetwalker media."

Not that there's anything wrong with that. There's a reason prostitution is called the world's oldest profession. Its services are ever in demand.

But there's also a reason the Democrats have been so busy promoting Limbaugh as the face of the Republican Party, and it relates directly to the way in which he and the other radio talkers have serviced the party leaders. As my fellow conservative pundit John Derbyshire notes in a recent article in the American Conservative magazine titled "How Radio Wrecks the Right," they were complicit in the George W. Bush/Karl Rove strategy that "fixed in the minds of too many Americans that conservatism is always low-brow." That strategy turned out to be disastrous. Intelligent people do not want to be in a party headed by a hefty huckster like Limbaugh.

But the Republicans are stuck with him for now. This is because of another form of captive regulation. Since its beginning in 1934, the Federal Communications Commission has helped a handful of broadcast companies create an artificial monopoly of the airwaves. Limbaugh can make use of that monopoly power to throw his weight around.

But thanks to the magic of the internet, the free market is finally being restored. You can get streaming internet radio not just on your home computer but on your car radio if you have the right equipment. I did so just the other day. As I was driving down the Parkway, I tuned in Derbyshire's podcast, "Radio Derb."

This is the free market at work. For the first time ever, we will be able to hear genuine conservative intellectuals streaming from our car speakers as we go down the road.

So now we can tell all of those streetwalkers what we should have told them long ago: Take a hike.

Comments temporarily suspended: Too many moron perspectives

I'm sorry but I'm getting altogether too many comments here that represent what I term "The Moron Perspective," a complete lack of comprehension of the political spectrum. So I'm temporarily suspending comments. In the interim, please read my comments policy and also Google my name and any issue you desire so you may acquaint yourself with the writings of real conservative as opposed to those who prostitute the idea of conservatism.

Comments now restored. Dittoheads discouraged from commenting here.

Now that everyone has had a chance to read my comments policy, I'm sure everyone has seen this section:

"2. I can't stand commenters who write, 'You're not a real conservative.' If you know of some conservative thinker such as Hobbes, Locke, Burke, Oakeshott et al., whose views disagree with my own, feel free to quote those views. Hint: Rush Limbaugh and Sean Hannity don't count. If you see them as conservative thinkers rather than entertainers, this is not the blog for you. There's a whole vast Internet specifically designed to appeal to people like you. I encourage you to find your niche. It is not here."

If you are so naive you believe that Rush Limbaugh is a real conservative, please do not comment here. Instead, call in to his program and ask him whether his proud of doing commercials.

If you get past the screener, then you can comment here and tell us all about it. Otherwise, please forget this blog exists. It is going so far over your head that you may break your neck reading it.