view of a liberal limbaugh

Rush Limbaugh's cousin writes about what it's like:

Then there are the questions. What's he like? Do you know him? Is he an a**hole?

Well, he's the relative you don't see much, who shows up on Christmas Eve on his own plane with an anchor lady you didn't know he was dating until your friend's dad told you the night before. He's fairly loud, but all the Limbaughs are. He's that one over there with the cousins singing rowdy Christmas carols around the piano. Yeah, the one with the cochlear implant, the guy holding a humidor. He's Cousin Rusty, and he's OK.

Sometimes he invites you to his house for Thanksgiving, you and every single one of your relatives, all expenses paid, and he puts you up in a resort that makes you feel like a movie star. He gives you a room key that doubles as his credit card and you can't help but charge Chanel sunglasses on it for everything he did the previous year that had made your job as a new teacher in a liberal high school any harder.

He's the guy who puts "March of the Penguins" on his home movie theater screen for the little cousins to watch and makes sure his candy bowls are filled with jelly beans and doesn't swear when my nephew tries to throw his antiques down the stairs. He's the guy who came from nothing to something and knows what it feels like to miss Missouri.

One Thanksgiving he stands in front of all us relatives in his Versailles-looking living room, and before my grandpa prays over our meal, Cousin Rusty apologizes. He says he's afraid he has made it tough to be a Limbaugh this past year, and his voice breaks like I have never heard it do before. Cousin Rusty is OK.

about the bias she faces as an (albeit liberal) limbaugh:

And a year later I find myself talking to my mentor the first day of the school year -- my first day as a high-school teacher. I ask my mentor if she thinks my last name will be a problem with the students or parents because the district the school is in tends to be very liberal. She looks surprised at my question and asks, "Why would it be a problem?"

"I don't know," I say, feeling silly. "It just sometimes is." And as we're talking, she walks me to the main office to show me the mailboxes and to introduce me to the secretary. Upon introduction, the secretary says, "So, do you do drugs too?" and I try not to look upset, but I also don't want to laugh it off, because I don't think what she said is funny.

Then I am standing at the ticket counter at LaGuardia Airport, trying to get on another airplane because my flight to Chicago has been canceled. The man behind the counter tells me, "You're out of luck because I'm the biggest Democrat you'll ever meet." And instead of sputtering and fuming with indignation, I sputter and fume with shame because as I walk away, I say over my shoulder, "I didn't even say I was related." Not too proud of my last name? Not too proud of my family?

Even though our ideologies do not align, I have always admired Rush for his humor and savvy. I would like to believe that he has created a semi-tongue-in-cheek persona for entertainment's sake, a self-aware self-parody, the original Stephen Colbert. While his haters have always been too busy running in angry frenetic circles to notice the irony, Rush Limbaugh, the caricature, has had the time of his life; and there's something to admire in he who gets the last laugh.

Rush once told me, "The only way to make millions is for half the nation to hate you." He told me this at his mom's funeral when I was 13, and I think the reason he was talking business was because he was trying not to look so sad. It's funny how the subject of half the nation hating him could effectively lighten his mood.