The picture is a stunning image: Rush Limbaugh, wearing a suit, puffing a cigar, displayed in harshest black and white. It seemed a fitting portrait of the man deemed a prophetic leader by his fans and an egomaniacal ideaologue by his foes.

The New York Times Magazine published the photographic portrait of Limbaugh on its cover this weekend to accompany the biographical portrait written by Magazine regular Zev Chafets. In preparation for the piece, Chavets exchanged e-mails with Limbaugh; visited his studio in West Palm Beach, Fla.; spent time with the talk show host in his home and even accompanied him to dinner—a sort of “Day-in-the-Life-of-Limbaugh” experience.

You know Rush Limbaugh: Bombastic, pretentious and obstinate; the gilded Pied Piper of the Right.

Yes. And no.

If you think these things about Rush, you need to read Chavets’ story.

It’s a lengthy read—checking in at more than 7,800 words, it’s no morning coffee piece—but Chavets explains why Rush is the way he is—and how he isn’t who you think he is at all. He’ll confirm some of your assumptions: Among them, Rush’s affinity for luxury and the unapologetic self-aggrandizement that disgusts his critics. But, as Chavets explains, there’s more to Rush than the oil portrait of El Rushbo and his new $54 million jet.

Civil rights activist Al Sharpton offers this about Limbaugh:

“I despise his ideology,” Sharpton told me, “but Rush is a lot smarter and craftier than Don Imus. Limbaugh puts things in a way that he can’t be blamed for easy bigotry. Some of the songs he does about me just make me laugh. But he’s the most dangerous guy we have to deal with on the right, including O’Reilly and Imus. They come at you with an ax. He uses a razor.”

Limbaugh nearly lost it all when he was busted for “doctor shopping” for prescription pain killers a few years ago. “His enemies jeered that the white knight of American conservatism was a junkie,” Chavets writes; “ Limbaugh, that self-important purveyor of conservative superiority, had been kicked off his high horse and into the mud of the commoners.

An intensive drug treatment program followed. In it, Limbaugh learned—and revealed in the article—the irony that nearly did him in: It was insecurity, not his trademark hyperconfidence, that made Limbaugh captive to substance abuse. America’s foremost political critic—the man who seemed self-assured enough to go on the air everyday to lead the conservative movement and lambaste the leaders of liberalism—wasn’t sure, deep down, that he met his own standards.

“My problem was born of immaturity and my childhood desire for acceptance,” Limbaugh told Chavets. “I learned in drug rehab that this was stunting and unrealistic. I was seeking acceptance from the wrong people.

“I thank God for my addiction,” he said. “It made me understand my shortcomings.”

Humility. From Rush Limbaugh.

Yes, for real.

For the rest of Chavets’ outstanding and enlightening article, click here.

And if you’re tempted to skip it, consider this: Rush is going to be around for a while. He’s got a nine-figure (yes, nine) signing bonus that says so.