(2 of 2)
Rush after the revolution is much like Rush before the revolution, an outsider content to stay there because it gives him a clearer shot and because, after all this success, he still thinks he won't find acceptance on the inside. Rather than be part of the Speaker's festivities, he took the week off to golf in Hawaii. Unlike so many rich guys who have used their new fortunes to remake themselves with Fifth Avenue apartments, houses in the Hamptons and charity balls, he lives the kind of small-town life he would have lived had he stayed in Cape Girardeau, Missouri, only with more possibilities for ordering in ethnic food. After dinner, he is dropped off at a nondescript high-rise on the Upper West Side, with two bedrooms and no dining-room table. Having gone on numerous diets, he is now satisfied, he says, to "maintain" his current weight, which is one attitude the President might be sympathetic to. He doesn't go to museums, the theater or the movies. He prefers to buy videos rather than rent them, so he doesn't have to take them back. (His latest purchase was Philadelphia.) For a social life, he has "the Mosbachers -- that's it as far as New York society goes -- and they're friends." The one thing he likes about Manhattan is that everything can be delivered.
Lucky for him, he didn't have to go out to find his third wife, Marta, whom he met on CompuServe. They married last Memorial Day weekend at the home of Supreme Court Judge Clarence Thomas. The only time he gets really irritated is when he is reminded of his comment two years ago about whether, as a family- values kind of guy, he was interested in having a family. He replied he would think about it after he had a wife. "So, yeah, now maybe I'm thinking about it," he snaps, "but what does that have to do with anything?"
Rush admits that some days the routine gets to him: the seven newspapers at 7:30 a.m., the relentlessness of being on. "Some days I don't care if anybody knows what I think. But you gut it up and do it, you're a pro. I defy you to tell me when I'm having one of those days."
He's definitely not having one of those days on Thursday, when he takes time out from celebrating his 44th birthday to broadcast his spin on my interview before it appears, criticizing me for trying to get Rush to criticize Newt, criticizing me for not criticizing the Democrats, criticizing me for being a reporter. "I tell you, folks, it's another glorious reason why you're fortunate to have me as your host because the real story here is how the Democrats are falling apart, and you will not find this in the Mainstreamliberalpress."