Laura Ingraham's Latest Money Making Crusade

Self-righteous and self appointed right wing moral crusader, Laura Ingraham has a new cause and a new book, POWER TO THE PEOPLE, now claiming to see "pornography" all over American culture, citing laughable figures such as Britney Spears or Paris Hilton to somehow prove her convoluted point. Now Laura, come on. Britney Spears and Paris Hilton are both laughable figures, popular only because both are such "trainwrecks". Few in the public really admire either figure. Britney Spears Cds hardly even sell any longer. She hasn't had a new Cd out in years because she refuses to get into the studio and actually record some new songs. An original November 2006 release date for a new Cd keeps getting pushed back farther, due to Britney Spears' nonstop string of personal newsworthy nonsense rather than recording. Britney Spears is unlike other washed up music performers in that she's absurdly funny only because her antics are so awful as well as funny. It's like trailor park trash gone wild watching her. Other one-hit washed up music acts are hardly half as much fun to watch. Britney Spears is hardly the mainstream of American culture, but a major unintentional comedy figure. Her overweight, out of shape, out of sync, lip sync MTV event this past week gave the public a fresh new truckload of laughs and the comics new jokes. It was probably more funny than comic performance that evening, and certainly more talked about by the public.

But the more sexually raunchy the entertainment, the less appeal it also has. There is a point where something goes beyond sexy to being just obnoxious or offensive and the sales drop to all but just fringe markets of buyers. Laura Imgraham claims that Larry Flynt must be pleased with modern entertainment. But isn't Larry Flynt part of an old 1980's controversy and hardly very relevant these days with Hustler Magaine long replaced by internet websites and DVDs featuring adult entertainment.

Rather than actually understanding popular culture, Ingraham only really displays her major ignorance of it. Raunchy entertainment is not the mainstream of popular entertainment as Ingraham seems to claim, but still only just a fringe portion of the market. Most popular culture is really pretty mainstream in nature.

It is also ironic that Ingraham chooses to hijack the title of John Lennon's radical POWER TO THE PEOPLE song for her book. Lennon and Ingraham could not be more different. Lennon was a left wing progressive and a near revolutionary who recorded songs with the radical if not openly Marxist Elephant's Memory Band for example. Ingraham is as establishment as you can get, a former speech writer for Ronald Reagan, and a lawyer who defended white collar criminals. Ingraham didn't attempt to keep the public safe from bad people, but worked hard to keep them out of jail for screwing people. Ingraham condemns "liberal elitism" in entertainment and academia, yet has represented nothing other than the elites in business and power for her part. And while being a journalist of sorts, she also condemns the profession and attacks the Iraq War coverage.

While Ingraham is at least less caustic than some like Ann Coulter or Michelle Malkin, her absurd attacks on culture and journalism are no less wrong.

The bottom line is that Laura Ingraham empire is all about the almighty dollar; selling books, selling $49.95 subscriptions to website services, earing big money with a talk show on 306 U.S. radio stations. Creating a phony crisis in order to get a little attention is always good for bottom line. It's as establishment and white collar as you can possiby get. There's no people power to be found here.