It is not so much an "asshole bias" as a reaction against the emphasis which is placed on 'soft' skills in management: empathy, tact, drive for 'diversity' even when this means compromising on skills, etc. Linus is known to be an effective project manager who does not fit the mould of the modern 'soft' 'people manager' so any time some quotable reference appears he's cheered upon by those who don't agree with these 'modern' management styles.

Linus is not an asshole and no one thinks assholes are 'cool'. This comes across as a distorted framing of the issue to fit a preconceived bias.

There are millions of lkml posts that don't get posted here, only the ones where Linus has to tick someone off or express a disagreement, usually posted with zero context or history.

If your impression of Linus is based solely on posts that make it to HN you have a lot of catching up to do.

Also plenty of people think assholes are cool, otherwise Dan Bilzerian would be a janitor.

Obviously assholes would find other assholes 'cool'. It's self defining.

Simply stated that every HN post about him seems praise worthy of an assholey comment.

People tend to view antisocial or idiosyncratic behavior in successful people as being a necessary component of their success, as it separates them from their contemporaries in the social and professional mainstream. The same can be said about many successful entrepreneurs and business people, if they're famously irascible or ill-mannered, that will be held up as a noble quality by their peers, even as it's denounced amongst their peers.

TL;DR: Linus Torvalds created Linux, and by extension a cargo cult around his personality, whereas the theoretical asshole on your team who won't take your PR is just an asshole.