Leonard Pitts Jr. writes that Rush Limbaugh’s continuing popularity is a product of the Republican party’s extremism, in his column, “The Limbaugh Rock: How Low Can You Go?”

If you think Rush Limbaugh is fatally wounded, think again.

By way of explanation, let me tell you how a certain subset of my readers will react to this column. Experience dictates that once I’ve taken my last swipe at their dear leader, Limbaugh’s followers will well … rush to fire off angry emails in his defense. They will do this though there is no defense for what he did on his program last week — calling Georgetown University law student Sandra Fluke a “prostitute” and a “slut” after she testified in support of requiring health insurers to pay for women’s contraception.

His followers will declare, through some arcane “logic” peculiar to true believers, that “Rush” — it’s always “Rush,” as if they and the multimillionaire talk-show host were in the same bowling league — didn’t say what I thought he said, or didn’t mean what I thought he meant.

Point being, he reportedly reaches 15 million people a week who worship him robotically and sycophantically. So it is a fact of life that the advertisers he’s lost as a result of his diarrheic mouth — at least 10 at last count — will soon return, or be replaced.