The Doctor Is Out!

Dr. Laura Schlessinger

I wasn't going to touch this (it's been all over Facebook, Twitter, and blogs all week), but today I heard that Dr. Laura is leaving the air and her reason, "to keep her first amendment rights." Oh, poor, poor her... nobody's taking her rights. As long as she's making money for her radio network, she is free to say whatever she damn well pleases. You see that Don Imus and Howard Stern are still on the air.

Anyway, you had to be living under a rock to not know about this one, but Dr. Laura Schlessinger says she's shutting down her 30 year old syndicated radio program at the end of the year. Her announcement on "Larry King Live" last night comes just a week after she repeatedly used the N-word while taking a call on the air from a black woman who wanted to discuss her interracial marriage.

According to E! Online, she told King... "My contract is up for my radio show at the end of the year and I've made the decision not to do radio anymore. The reason is I want to regain my First Amendment rights. I want to be able to say what's on my mind and in my heart and what I think is helpful and useful without somebody getting angry, some special interest group deciding this is the time to silence a voice of dissent and attack affiliates, attack sponsors. I'm sort of done with that."

That's what people like her always say after they've offended millions of people. Suddenly, they become the victims. She said (unfortunately), she's not retiring or quitting but rather, hopes to be "stronger and freer to say the things that I believe need to be said for people in this country."

Dr. Laura Schlessinger, 63 years old, had issued an apology the day after her verbal N-word gaffe and said on her website August 11th that said she was wrong in using the word for what she called an attempt to make a philosophical point. "I articulated the N-word all the way out, more than one time" (It was 5 times within five minutes but, who's counting?), Dr. Laura said in comments from the opening of her radio show that she posted on her site." And, that was wrong. I'll say it again... that was wrong."

Well, of course she's saying that now. She said... "I realized I had made a horrible mistake, and was so upset, I could not finish the show." Dr. Laura said she pulled herself off the air at the end of the hour. (Oh, I bet she did!) Corinne Baldassano, an executive with Dr. Laura's production company, Take On The Day LLC, said the talk show host plans to pursue opportunities through her website, books, podcasts, and a YouTube channel.

At least two national sponsors of her radio program, General Motors and Motel 6, owned by Accor SA, have pulled out of the show heard on nearly 200 stations, Baldassano said. During the exchange on that August 10th show, Schlessinger said an African-American woman who called herself Jade, was "too sensitive" for complaining that her white husband's friends made racist comments about her and in their home as though she wasn't there.

Dr. Laura, according to her website, is a best-selling author of 11 adult books and four children's books, which range from the provocative "The Proper Care & Feeding of Husbands" to the children's book "Why Do You Love Me?" She describes herself as a supporter of children and family values. (Isn't everybody?) She also writes a monthly column for NewsMax and posts a daily blog and weekly YouTube videos. This isn't the first time Dr. Laura has made a politically incorrect faux paux... In 2008, on the TODAY show, Schlessinger said, "I hold women accountable for tossing out perfectly good men by not treating them with the love, kindness, respect, and attention they need."

In May 2007, the Santa Barbara News Press cancelled her newspaper column after the Pentagon launched an investigation into objectionable material found on her son's MySpace page. In October 2000, Schlessinger's negative comments about homosexuality on her television show inspired gay activists to campaign to get her off the air. She called homosexuality deviant and derivative of "biological error", the New York Times reported at the time. She published a letter of apology in Variety, the Hollywood trade paper.

It just amazes me that people like her, Rush Limbaugh, Glenn Beck, and that harpie Ann Coulter exercise their right to free speech to defame and insult minorities... gays, women, etc., but scream like little stuck pigs when these same groups exercise their right to not patronize businesses that bank roll their right to say such hateful things.

She has a right to say and believe anything she wants... and I have a right to not listen and to not patronize any business that supports her beliefs. That's the way the game is played... always has been, always will be.

I was listening to the entire broadcast. She was trying to make a point. Se wasn't using the word in a racist manner. She did (uh) get a little fascinated with the word for a minute, but one thing she was saying that rang true was this... on HBO and Showtime comedy specials that feature Black comedians and on 99% of hip-hop records, young African-Americans are calling each other the N-word. What is a white person to think?

We "African-Americans" keep giving people like the good doctor a stick to crack us on the head with! What can I say? Now that the doctor is going off the air, maybe I should put in a call to her network for that long-wanted radio show I've been dreaming of... Stay tuned!