The Times Magazine profiles Rush Limbaugh. Limbaugh is bigger in sheer numbers than any other radio personality and deserves a profile, but the magazine falls into a trap many outlets do when looking at a celebrity; puffing the subject up just to justify its own coverage—and avoiding the tough questions when it has a chance to ask them.

It’s hard to say how many people listen to Limbaugh’s show; Analysts say 14 million, the host says 20. Let’s say it’s 15 million. That’s five percent of the population of the U.S. It’s a not insignificant number, but it’s not a particularly big or scary one, either. The story is careful not to discuss in detail the demographics of that audience, but they can be inferred from this scene:

Throughout dinner, people approached our table. Most were prosperous-looking Republican men of a certain age. “God bless you,” they told him, or, “Keep up the fight.” He smiled and thanked them in a good-natured way. One elderly gent in a blue blazer and gray slacks went into a long spiel about his good works on behalf of several conservative causes.

I live in Phoenix, where Limbaugh’s show is a mainstay on the area’s highest-rated station—but it’s on AM, as it is in most markets. That’s not a particularly upscale, or youthful, medium. This is probably anecdotal, but for what it’s worth, I’ve never heard Limbaugh’s name mentioned in my year here—and because I deal with friends of my parents a lot, I interact with people in his target audience fairly frequently.

I bring it up because there’s a certain tautological quality to the realities of the audience of the O’Reilly’s and Limbaughs of the world, but it’s rarely mentioned in the coverage of them. Didn’t we know there’s a small audience of cranks, far to the right, most of them senior citizens, who steam and stew about a quixotic array of political issues?

In the article, Limbaugh is honest enough to say that he’s a businessman first and foremost. His talent is just sniffing out that genuine, if slightly musty, audience and monetizing it. Is there a greater import to the Limbaugh phenomenon than this? I don’t think so.

Fox News, as well, is in a sense a baby sitter for people who have strongly held views and don’t want them challenged by inconvenient facts. (People on the left are of course susceptible to the same manipulation, but they haven’t coalesced, as yet, in the same numbers.) While it probably has some potency as a political force (particularly in recent presidential elections, where the margins of victory have been so close), that influence is limited to stirring up the folks who already watch the station and already have their minds made up politically.

What sets Limbaugh and Fox apart is their lack of journalistic scruples. The mainstream media has its problems, and occasionally its scandals, but the wholesale intellectual dishonesty and refusal to acknowledge facts set these outlets apart. People who listen to Limbaugh are free to do so; in theory, over time, if they don’t get the information they need, of if they take actions based on the bad information they get, they will presumably pay some form of a “dumb tax.” You could argue that they are doing that now in the form of high gas prices or, in a more extreme sense, in the form of losing loved ones in a war based on faulty (or disregarded) intelligence.

The NYT writer, Zev Chafets, had the opportunity to ask Limbaugh about this aspect of his modus operandi, but didn’t.

Similarly, he mentioned Limbaugh’s drug addiction:

After the show, Limbaugh and I sat in the studio for several hours talking. He was in an expansive mood, and he didn’t duck when I asked him about the most infamous chapter of his career, his drug bust. In 2006, after years of addiction to painkillers, Limbaugh was charged in Florida with “doctor shopping” prescriptions. He pleaded not guilty and cut a deal; the charges would be dismissed after 18 months if he continued rehabilitation and treatment with a therapist.

Needless to say, the case became a national scandal. His enemies jeered that the white knight of American conservatism was a junkie. His fans feared the scandal might end his career. Some prayed for him. Limbaugh’s lawyer, Roy Black, hired a Florida psychologist, Steve Strumwasser, to evaluate his client.

The story gets syrupy after that. Needless to say, Chafets didn’t press Limbaugh about the extent of his criminal action, or challenge him on any particular hypocrisy issues, or ask him to reflect on the different ways society treats people who are addicted to drugs—rich white guys vs. poor black ones, for example.