Conservative Provocateur Or BIG BLOWHARD?

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Rush's frequent attacks on feminists -- he has puckishly proposed, for example, that the issue of women in combat be resolved by forming 52 "PMS battalions" of women with the condition, led by "Sergeant Major Molly Yard" -- would seem to restrict his dating range in commie-lib Manhattan. Recently, though, he has been seeing Donna Dees, a p.r. director at CBS News. "She has her reputation to be concerned about," says Rush the male chivalrist, with no evident irony. "It's very embarrassing for a very liberal woman to go out with a conservative guy like me." Dees amiably allows that Rush is "not the Antichrist that my feminist friends painted him as." Listening to his show, she says, "I haven't been that offended. Actually, I think he's kind of funny."

Limbaugh's knack for being funny persuaded Ed McLaughlin, a former president of the ABC Radio Network, to make the talker a national star. "The thing I got immediately," McLaughlin says, "was his sense of humor in a traditionally nonhumorous format. He had all the elements: innate intelligence, a high curiosity and the desire to be a star." In 1988 McLaughlin made Limbaugh a partner in their enterprise and brought him to New York City's WABC, as a base for the so-called Excellence in Broadcasting Network -- a company that does not exist; Rush just thought the name sounded imposing.

Now Limbaugh is a one-man conglomerate. He has the book, which longtime listeners will recognize as Rush's Greatest Hits. (He hits on liberalism, environmentalism, Hollywood, and for old time's sake he hits on Mikhail Gorbachev.) He has an audiocassette of the book -- the ideal way to get through the tome, since Rush not only abridges the text but provides comedy sound effects (dolphin noises, Meryl Streep impressions and a frog slurp). He has the Limbaugh Letter, a monthly compendium "dedicated to preserving my wisdom for the ages" and "printed on nonrecycled paper." He has T shirts, mugs, bumper stickers. In salesmanship as in showmanship, he's a winner.

So why not add TV? Well, there was the question of his telegenicity. At 320 lbs., his weight last year, Rush could hardly have fit on the small screen. And would people want to watch a guy just talking on a show with cable-access production values? It's radio with a night light. One night Rush read excerpts from a book. Nobody had tried that on TV since Billy Graham.

None of this matters, because all of it works. Rush has taken to the medium in no time flat. At a svelte 270, his friendly, full-moon face piked on a Pillsbury Doughboy frame, he looks like a defrocked Friar Tuck. More important, he has underlined another aspect of his personality: that of class clown. He woos the camera like an avid freshman on a fluke date with the senior prom queen. He guffaws, he blusters, he bats his eyes, he makes kissy- face. He will do anything to keep you watching.

Anything but talk sense, say prickly liberals. According to one radio caller, a bookstore in Portland, Oregon, refused to stock The Way Things Ought to Be. "And if we did," the salesclerk said, "it would be in the Children's Fiction section."