Rush Limbaugh Is a Big Fat Idiot

Franken, a writer and performer on Saturday Night Live and in feature films, does to Limbaugh what the conservative talk-show host has been doing to Democratic politicians for years. Using admitted half-truths and out-of-context quotes, he skewers Rush & Friends as no liberal has done in years. Franken does a retrospective of Limbaugh's life from when he ""fed off the largesse of the government in the form of unemployment insurance""; how he failed to register to vote until he was 35; how he used two airline coach seats to fit his opulent hind-quarters; and how he got a 4-F deferment because of a pilonidal cyst. There are two hilarious sketches: ""My `Conversation' with Rush Limbaugh"" uses out-of-context quotes to corner Rush in much the same way that Limbaugh once had a ""conversation"" with Hillary Clinton; and ""Operation Chickenhawk,"" with Ollie North leading Vietnam draft-dodgers Limbaugh, Quayle, Buchanan, George Will and Clarence Thomas to their demises in Asian rice paddies. Franken also doesn't have anything nice to say about Newt Gingrich, Jerry Falwell, Pat Robertson, Phil Gramm and others of the haranguing right. A mean-spirited, albeit funny, diatribe that will delight liberals. Illustrations not seen by PW. (Feb.)