I've actually read the supermarket magazine report. The housekeeper has e-mails that were reproduced, in full color. They show Rush e-mailing back and forth with her, about some pretty staggering numbers of pills. He paid her a hundred thousand dollars, then had his attorney sign a receipt for the money as though she was 'getting a personal loan' from him, that (of course), she'd never have to pay back. Rush's conduct does not at all appear exemplary, in this piece.
The article has been out now, for a week or 10 days, and it took him this long to admit his problem. He never went on record with any serious or substantive denials, and the piece has been characterized (I can't remember where) as being an "extremely accurate" job of reporting. All he's had to say is that there are 'some inaccuracies', but that can't be challenged because he's not said what they might be.
Personally, I have to admit that I've listened more for entertainment, stuck in traffic, than for information or any kind of enlightenment. Rush has mostly struck me as being too emotional, a little too sure of himself, and more than a little too glib.
I have to wonder how much of that came from the opiates, in the quantities that he was apparently using.
I know I'm not the right person to judge, though, because I haven't been a consistent listener. The only example I can think of is about 3 weeks or a month ago, out of the middle of nowhere, he announced that there was a report out, from SKYnews (the U.K. cousin of FOXnews), that there was an accident involving a plane in Scotland, and 'the Dixie Chicks were apparently on board'... or something like that. The next day, of course, I looked in the paper and there was nothing. The Chicks are still with us. What happened was that a wing of their private jet clipped a building, after they'd already landed and were taxiing in. Not a life-threatening event. But that's what Rush made it sound like. And I was kind of turned off by the apparent satisfaction in Rush's voice, making that report of a report, of the possibility of their passing. It just sounded strange, and it was definitely a highly edited version of that news account.
Not that big a deal, but I remember it bothering me at the time, before any of this stuff about the drug use came out.