From WNYC in New York, this is NPR's on the media.

I'm Brooke Gladstone.

And I'm Bob Garfield.

The big political story all this week was that the fractured, fragmented, frustrated conservative movement

had more or less found its leader.

And who was this Moses to lead the party back to the promised land?

Is Rush Limbaugh the leader of the Republican Party? I want you to watch something. Remarkably, the central discussion in Republican politics right now is Rush Limbaugh's... Nobody's really listening to the conservative leaders. We used to know that leaves Rush Limbaugh, and that's why we're in the situation.

The liberal hating, race-baiting, character assassinating, syndicated talk show host.

Dressed like a tango finalist, he strode to the lectern at last weekend's conservative political action conference in Washington, D.C.

to a rapturous reception.

Thank you all. I can't tell you how wonderful that makes me feel.

It happens everywhere I go, but it's still special.

Then, without benefit of a script, Limbaugh spent 85 minutes being Limbaugh.

I have learned how to tweak liberals everywhere.

I can do it instinctively now.

Tweak them in the media, tweak them in the...

There's no reason to be afraid of these people, but why in the world would you be afraid of the deranged?

Later that day, the newly elected Republican Party chairman, Michael Steele, tried to distance himself from the, quote,

ugly and incendiary nature of Limbaugh's schick. This elicited such outrage within his own party

that Steele felt compelled to apologize, a groveling exercise interpreted by many pundits as

acknowledgement of Limbaugh's supremacy.

Here's Fox News Channel's Bill O'Reilly.

...